


Remembered Light

by Quercusrobur



Series: Sun In My Sky [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, BDSM, Barnable is basically an Original Character, Canon Compliant, Disability, Dubious Consent, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: 2013 Xmas The Time of the Doctor, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fair amount of fluff too, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Romance, Trauma, Trenzalore, Worldbuilding, so much love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2020-01-15 01:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 136,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18488671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quercusrobur/pseuds/Quercusrobur
Summary: Wherein Jack comes to Trenzalore, and stays for quite a long time. If you’re watching The Time of the Doctor, this entire book, all 280-ish years of it, takes place between the scene where the Doctor walks away from Barnable telling him he might leave tomorrow or the next day, and the next scene with Tasha Lem’s voiceover beginning, “And so, to the fields of Trenzalore, came all the Doctor’s enemies.” It’s about one third romance, one third worldbuilding, and one third sequel to the other books in the series - that’s the angst and trauma recovery part - which is to say, not impenetrable if you’re looking for Trenzalore stories and don’t want to read the others. 900 years is a lot of time and I really wanted to see some of it. It does also provide a satisfying resolution to my little trilogy (plus extras), never fear. Sequel toFire the CrucibleandA Long Shadow Cast.Updating Mondays and Thursdays.





	1. The walking dead

**Author's Note:**

> _Although I’ve put a lot of research into this, there’s a lot that has to get hand-waved away as well, because of how Trenzalore is shown in our brief glimpses of it. The houses are unsuitable for eternal winter; a single town would never survive 900 years so unchanged. There is no quirk of celestial mechanics I have been able to think of that explains five minutes of daylight without seasonal change. There must have been long stretches of peace, in those centuries, or such limited resources would have been depleted. I’ve taken liberties with the internal geography of the tower. And most especially, Barnable must have been very, very important to the Doctor, for him to still ask for him 600 years later._   
>    
>  _This is a more settled and domestic story than the others, by necessity, but there is still a fair bit of adventure. It is the culmination of the conflict between Jack's immortality and the Doctor's looming mortality that has been driving the story since the beginning of Crucible. The series is canon compliant, so there is a lot of happily-for-now, but no happy ending. Jack doesn't get happy endings. Just endings, and beginnings, and the time in between._

In general and by philosophy, the Papal Mainframe is open to all. In practice, Jack is not at all certain this continues to apply to a Papal Mainframe on a war footing, and chooses an out of the way corner to teleport in to. By luck or skill there is no one in sight. Jack sighs in relief, verifies no life signs nearby, and sets off for a bit of a recce before he presents himself to the gatekeepers. The corridors are dark and echoing, although with neither voices nor footfalls to echo, it is mostly a feeling of openness contrasting the visual evidence. Occasionally a mechanical clank echoes through, or the groaning shift of any structure. There are odd baffles scattered through the open spaces, as if the residents are often given to watching unobserved; Jack is wary of them at first but as he continues to find no one they recede into the background.

He had to do a significant amount of timeline tracing to find out where and when the Doctor went to ground. Eventually, despite some very odd effects, he determined that targeting the TARDIS was his best bet and finally got a solid lock on it, _this_ time, _this_ planet. This inaccessible planet. The Doctor got through somehow, though, and Jack will too.

When the familiar grinding wheeze of the TARDIS reaches his ears Jack groans, looks around, and checks his wrist again to make doubly sure there is no one about. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Your _timing_ , Doctor.” The Doctor has, as best Jack can tell, been _trying_ to catch him at inopportune moments lately, and odds are he has managed it again; his bowtie-and-braces Doctor, whom Jack is here chasing after, and damn their bizarre timelines.

“Jack!” the Doctor exclaims cheerfully; yes, it is him, the very Doctor who _really_ shouldn’t be here, now. “I've got - look, I don't think it's too much to ask that I shouldn't have to say this _every time I see you_ , but put some clothes on!” He takes a quick look around and exits the TARDIS.

Momentarily distracted by the Doctor’s ridiculous exaggeration - he wears clothes _most of the time_ \- Jack stares at him, then shakes his head and and hisses, “I'm at church!”

“Ohhh. Carry on, then.”

Jack sighs. “Doctor, I don’t want to sound like a broken record either, but you can't be here. What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Language, Captain, you're at church! I've got this.” He holds up the twin to the vortex manipulator on Jack's wrist; or rather, its earlier self. “When did I give it back to you?”

Jack groans, rubbing his forehead. “ _That's_ all?”

“Well I didn't want to get it wrong,” the Doctor says defensively, scowling.

Already pushing buttons for the query, Jack rolls his eyes. Things like that come out in the wash, with time travel. “Wouldn't _be_ wrong, would it.”

“Well, no,” the Doctor concedes. “But how many times have you seen me popping in to ask if it's early enough yet?”

Considering all the equally ridiculous excuses the Doctor has given for his recent visits… it wouldn’t have been out of place, certainly. _Is it Tuesday this time? Have you seen my blue shirt? Do you suppose it’s cutting the middle out that makes bagels delicious?_ “True, I haven't heard that excuse yet; alright. Learned your lesson about popping in randomly?”

“Not at all!”

He is entirely too happy for Jack to deal with, right now. Jack reads out a string of coordinates and says, “Now shoo, I'm serious, you can't be seen here.”

The Doctor nods understandingly. “Too many clothes.”

“Any other day I'd be happy to help with that. Go!” He goes, and Jack shakes his head. Centuries ago, for Jack; he wishes briefly he hadn’t been so _young_ at the time, but on the other hand the idea of being trapped any longer in that time is horrible.

He starts forward again, then freezes. Someone is watching him, one of the creepy confessional priests that _have been watching him_ -! “I could really do without the forgetting,” he tells it, but it just stares at him him, tilting its head slowly. “That wasn’t the one you want.” After a moment, it nods, and walks away.

He starts forward again, feeling unaccountably on edge. There is still no one around and the Doctor is safely away; nothing to worry about. It is just unnerving, he decides, exploring this giant empty place with only his vortex manipulator. He does feel a bit naked, unarmed, and he laughs silently at the thought; here they have found a way to make even Captain Jack Harkness join in the spiritual nakedness, and no help from hologram generators. Checking his wrist again, he frowns. _Still_ no life signs. With a few button presses he expands the range to its maximum, which ought to cover the entire Mainframe. There are only about two hundred life signs, which is absurd for a ship this size. Something is very wrong here.

Plan A - show up and talk his way down to the surface - is looking less likely every minute. His usual Plan B is a non-starter; the Papal Mainframe enforces its peace strictly and ruthlessly, and Jack would be drifting in space right now if he had tried to bring a blaster, or even his favorite multitool. Which leads him to Plan C… drifting in space. Purposefully, at fairly high velocity. He checks the progress of his effort to access the Mainframe's computers, to find out exactly where he is aiming. It is nearly complete. Jack sets Plan C for single-button activation and continues on his way.

The feeling of unease increases as he nears the central chapel. When well-lit and populated, this place is surprisingly cheerful; now the wide avenues of shadows press in, the intricate floor paths draw the eye to apparent dead ends, and the occasional clear view of passageways and vast open spaces feel like looking into the void. The architecture alone is nearly enough to drive an invading force mad. It is meant to, Jack supposes; the Church has never pretended to pacifism, only pacification. He realises he has stopped walking again, and looks around carefully. Nothing, again. Shaking his head, he checks again for life signs, relieved to find he is nearly there. After another minute he begins to hear the quiet echoes of voices. When he turns the next corner he finds a Cleric waiting patiently for him.

“Welcome, pilgrim,” he says, polite and unsurprised. “Why have you come?”

Bowing his head respectfully, Jack replies, “I seek an audience with the Mother Superious.”

The Cleric pauses for a moment, then nods. “You are a known associate of the Doctor. The Mother Superious will see you.”

“Excuse me?” Jack says, startled.

“The Mother Superious will see you,” the Cleric repeats. “Follow me.” Now certain he is walking into a trap, Jack follows warily.

By the time he is shown in to meet the Mother Superious Jack has changed Plan C from single-button activation to dead-man switch, left wrist held tense but still usable - try to take it off him, knock him unconscious or dead, or just relax his wrist, and he’ll be on his way - because he walks behind a dead man, toward another corpse. This place is an immense mausoleum of the walking dead.

Without losing sight of the corpses around him, Jack bows low. “Mother Superious.”

“Captain Jack Harkness,” she says. Hands folded before her, she stands calmly in the midst of madness, the face of the Church and the iron hand that has directed it for centuries. “We extend Our apologies for your treatment at the hands of Our former associates.”

“Uh,” Jack says, thrown completely off script. “What?”

She smiles, more of a smirk; Jack would probably like her if she weren’t the one keeping him from the Doctor. “What is it the Doctor says? Spoilers. But We feel it is important to apologise where apologies will be due.”

Jack shakes his head. “Thanks, although I’d rather they weren’t going to be due, I think. Why are you dead?”

“This is almost certainly not the time for philosophical discussions.” Her eyes flicker sideways and Jack follows her gaze to see one of her attending Clerics slowly raising a hand. “Put your hand down, Parver,” she snaps, but he doesn't.

“Th-this man,” he stutters, “this man is-is-is an associate of the Doc-Doctor.”

“We are aware,” the Mother Superious says firmly. “No action is required.” Jack watches, fascination turning to horror as something pushes out from Parver’s forehead - something _very recognisable_ \- “Take him away, quickly.” She gestures emphatically, and he is gone.

Jack backs away a few steps so he can see everyone more easily. “You're all -”

“Yes. An unfortunate situation, but largely under control. We still enforce the peace, Captain, of that you may be certain. I shall send you to the surface before the conflict overcomes any more of my Clerics; my personal teleport will put you down near the town.” She turns halfway toward a door at the back of the hall, but holds her hand out to Jack. “You may bring no technology, as We have made very clear to all parties. That vortex manipulator on the surface will call down judgement upon you.”

Leave it here, in the care of Daleks? Jack can't think of a worse plan - and he has a lot of experience with bad plans - but they don’t seem to think it negotiable; two Clerics step toward him as he hesitates. “Of course, I'm sorry,” he says so they'll stop. Daleks they may be but he would rather not take them with him. “I’m so used to it, just forgot.” Unstrapping it from his wrist, Jack grins as he steps back into the vortex. As the curve of the planet appears beneath him and the last of his breath streams from his lungs, he yells silently, “Catch!” and watches it spin away and disappear. Laughing as the blood boils in his veins, Jack falls.

-+-+-+-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The Doctor Jack encounters here goes on to[There's a Thread You Follow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17284856)._


	2. Come to stay

The planet is significantly closer when Jack revives, but without air yet his view is quite brief. Just long enough to hope he misses the atmospheric braking, really. As much as he complains about drowning, burning has it beat for discomfort in the short term. He wonders if the Doctor has noticed him yet.

A couple of gasping breaths of thin, fast moving air later, Jack is relieved to find that he did miss reentry. He isn’t traveling fast enough to properly burn, of course; keeping enough of him together so as to not upset his trajectory was a high priority. The next forty two seconds he spends wondering how far he will have to walk and regretting that his body didn't take slightly more damage, because he _really_ isn't looking forward to the sudden stop at the end.

It is very quick, at least.

-+-+-

It is night - well of course it's night - the Doctor is asleep, in fact, when someone rings the bell at his door. Sitting up abruptly, he overshoots and tumbles to the floor tangled in the bedclothes. He snorts, and blinks, and sits up more cautiously even if there is nowhere further to fall. “What? Who is it? Barnable?”

“Doctor!” It is Barnable, he thinks. “There’s another one! Or… sort of. Mum said you’d better come have a look.”

“There’s bound to be more now,” the Doctor grumbles irritably. “Don’t see as how I need to come see them all.” That wooden Cyberman had certainly been worth seeing, though, so he gets dressed as he grumbles, grabs his cane, and limps to the door. He yanks it open. “What?”

“There’s another one,” says Barnable. Disconcertingly he seems to have got taller again.

“I _heard_.”

“Grumpy old man,” Barnable says fondly, and takes his arm to help him down the steps. “Sorry to wake you. It’s an odd one, fell from the sky Vessa said. Landed with a great thump and scared her half to death. It looks just like a normal person, only sort of, you know, flat.”

Curious in spite of himself, the Doctor speeds up slightly. “If we’re lucky it’s a popular new idea to get down here. Cheap, fast, and good: pick two. Well, let’s have a look.”

It is a bit of a walk, it turns out, all the way across town and into the fields on the outskirts. Crossing the field is slow going, and the Doctor is thinking uncharitable thoughts about whatever has caused him to be dragged from his bed when he sees Barnable's mum waving to them from not far ahead. “Alright then,” he grumbles, “what's this you've found?”

“I'm not at all sure, Doctor,” Doree says, wringing her hands, her usually cheerful round face lined with distress. “It looks like a man, but what sort of man falls from the sky? And I think… well, look. I don't think he's as, as _broken_ as he used to be.”

Sudden suspicion blooming in his mind accompanied by an entirely unseemly leap of his hearts, the Doctor steps forward. It takes him a moment to make sense of the tangle of pale limbs recessed a solid thirty centimetres into the surface of the field, but then a familiar angle of wrist, a messy shock of dark hair, a beloved freckled shoulder, resolve from the confusion.

 _When you no longer can_ , Jack had promised, _I will come to you_. He certainly took his time about it. But the Doctor is suddenly put in mind of a different time, a different cryptic comment, concerning falling. “Oh,” he says, “so that's what he meant.”

-+-+-

Jack opens his eyes to find an old man scowling at him. He blinks, unsure what he has done to deserve such an expression, and then flinches back into an unexpected surfeit of pillows as he realises the old man is the Doctor. “What the hell happened to you?”

The Doctor scowls harder. “Three hundred years, you eggheaded numpty. Where have _you_ been?”

 _I like to skip the boring parts_ , Jack means to say, but instead what comes out of his mouth is, “It took me ages just to figure out something had happened to you, and then I spent a year hopping every which way trying to figure out where you were, lost the TARDIS, found it again, discovered it’s all Daleks topside, and died several times to get to you, you stubborn ungrateful old goat!” Surprised, Jack eyes his surroundings cautiously for any sign of coercive effects, but if the rustic bed or the fire-lit room are hiding anything sinister he can see no sign of it.

The Doctor stares at him for a moment; then his mouth twitches. “I ought to mention, there’s a truth field here.”

“And I just saw you up there,” Jack adds, involuntarily, “going to return my vortex manipulator, which by the way I just tossed into the vortex so I hope the TARDIS is actually here. So it’s a bit of a shock you looking like a grumpy old man all of a sudden.” He tries, and fails, to say _sorry_. Instead, "Even though you always have been," falls from his lips and Jack covers his misbehaving mouth with his hand lest he say something it will be truly difficult to recover from. The truth thing is going to take some practice.

“That sounds like an atrociously executed mess. But,” the Doctor says, pauses for a second, and then shrugs. “I did miss you.” He does not say _I’m glad you’re here_ , but Jack is certain he can change the Doctor’s mind on that.

Jack smiles. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

Sighing, the Doctor sits on the edge of the bed, his face fallen to simple weariness. “It's no good, Jack, I can't come away with you. I don't need rescuing, this time. They need me here.”

“I didn't come to take you away,” Jack protests, startled.

“Why, then?” His eyes are the same as ever, deep and old and piercing.

One side of Jack's mouth turns up in a pained half smile. He shouldn't have expected anything, maybe, but he had hoped he would still be more than an occasional amusement or distant fond memory to the Doctor. Maybe not, after three hundred years. “Because I love you, stupid. I came to stay, too.” And let him argue with that.

The Doctor is still staring at him in consternation - it’s not as if he said anything _complicated_ \- when there is a cursory rap at the door and a woman backs in carrying a tray. “How is your friend, Doctor? Oh! My,” she exclaims, as she turns and sees Jack watching her. “I don’t think I quite believed you. I’m Doree, pleased to meet you. The two looky-lous,” she nods toward the door and Jack sees two heads peeking in, “are Barnable and Vessa; say hello.”

“Hello,” they chorus.

“Hello,” Jack says, smiling. “Very pleased to meet you as well. Captain Jack Harkness, recently described as an eggheaded numpty,” and damn the truth field; the Doctor snickers. “Or before that, a known associate of the Doctor’s.” He gives up. Doree laughs, and he sits up as she sets the tray in front of him on the bed. Even with the fire there is a chill in the room, and Jack is glad for the nightshirt he has been dressed in.

“A handsome rogue, I suspect,” she says. “There’s often a handsome rogue in the Doctor’s stories.” Jack raises an eyebrow and glances at the Doctor, who is looking pointedly away from him.

“I’ll be happy to play the part,” Jack agrees, surveying the simple meal of eggs and porridge and something that might be tea with pleasure. “Thank you, Doree.”

“A friend of the Doctor's is a friend of ours. Will you be staying?”

“Yes,” Jack says. “If he wants me to.” He starts eating, leaving the conversation temporarily to the Doctor.

“If I want you to,” the Doctor scoffs. “You -” He clamps his mouth shut, and Jack suspects he was about to try to say something blatantly false. He shakes his head, and shrugs, and looks back at Jack. “You do, don't you.” Jack nods, mouth full; the Doctor sighs. “Yes, he's staying. Not here,” he adds as Doree opens her mouth again. “He’ll stay with me. My Captain, my problem.” Relieved to find that _my Captain_ is still true, Jack smiles as he eats. The tea is odd, greener than Jack is used to and spiced, but good.

When Doree returns, she has Barnable in tow carrying a very welcome stack of clothes. “It's no one's best, so don't feel you're putting anyone out,” she tells him. “I guessed on size. Just keep what fits.”

“Thank you,” Jack says again, keeping his comments simple for now. “You'll tell me who to thank?”

“Of course.” Her cheek dimples prettily when she smiles, he notices, but he resists turning on the Captain Jack charm under the Doctor's watchful eye. These are the Doctor's people, moreso than Jack has seen before, and he intends to be on his best behaviour until he gets the lay of the land. _My Captain_ or no, the Doctor is liable to throw him out on his ear if Jack disturbs the comfortable world he has built around himself.

-+-+-+-

 


	3. Alone too long

Walking through the snow of this world he has shaped around himself year by year, the Doctor can’t help glancing over every so often. Jack is looking around curiously, taking it all in. The most familiar of people, in the most familiar of places, but somehow everything is rendered anew with Jack at his shoulder once again.

“It's called Christmas,” the Doctor says, as they come to the town proper. “The town, I mean.”

Jack laughs. “Boxing Day is just over the ridge, then?”

With mock dignity, the Doctor draws himself up. “As it happens, no.” He pauses for Jack's grin; his mouth twitches. This, _this_ he has missed. “It's about seven miles south.”

Jack snorts, and then laughs again, and says, “I can’t tell if you’re joking. Have to go find out for myself some day, I suppose. What do you do here?” A smile of surprisingly innocent delight lights his face as he kicks up a puff of snow; he does it again just for fun and dances a few steps. “Looks like a sleepy little place. Very pretty, though. Picturesque.”

“Oh, it is. You have no idea,” the Doctor pauses, looking around, then continues more quietly, “how _bored_ I was at first. Occasionally someone drops in, or I go up and get my sweets, but one town, one planet, one _time_ , I was never meant for this, Jack. I never thought I'd end up somewhere _boring._ ” He looks around with a proprietary air. “Of course I've improved it a bit.”

“Of course you have. And the Daleks in the Church, that’s a recent thing?” He has to ruin it, of course.

“Later. Look, everyone wants to see the man who fell from the sky.” Now well into the town, people are indeed coming out to watch, to greet, to see this exciting stranger; they are all used to unwelcome things, but for a friend of the Doctor’s to have come crashing down? The novelty is too much to resist, in this quiet little world. For a moment, as he watches Jack’s quick smile, his ease with people, the way he fits himself in with nary a ripple, the temptation to dismiss the last three centuries as a dream is nearly irresistible. Some unwelcome lacuna, ended now and unmourned, and they might fly away to the stars as always before - but if not with Clara and her ridiculous turkey, neither with Jack. And he said he came to stay. It is the time before the Doctor came here that is the dream. Memories won't help him now.

Turning away too quickly, the Doctor stumbles, catches himself with his cane; he can feel Jack's eyes suddenly riveted to his back. Unwelcome, unwanted, _unnecessary_. “I'm going back to bed,” he says, stomping steadily away. “You woke me from a perfectly good nap. Stay and chat if you like, I'm sure everyone will be delighted to show you about.” But he is only halfway home when he hears footsteps running to catch up. He doesn’t turn. “Go make a nuisance of yourself, I’m sure I don’t care.”

Jack says simply, “I came here for you,” and falls in beside him again. Silent, the Doctor continues on, angry at the sudden invasion of this refuge he has built around himself and disturbed to find the walls so close that not one single extra person can fit within.

-+-+-

He is grumpier than Jack expected; but then he is also older than Jack expected, and isn’t that odd. He must have been wearing this face for some six hundred years now. Three hundred years alone here, stuck in this dark, cold place, finally grounded for a cause worth staying for. More than old, Jack realises as he watches the Doctor climb the stairs to the door of what looks more like a hall or a belltower than a home. “What happened to your leg?”

The Doctor scowls at him and doesn’t answer. Instead he opens the door - not locked, and finely oiled and balanced, it swings open smoothly - and impatiently waves Jack inside. There are stairs inside the door too, going back down, and Jack shakes his head as he remembers the man perfectly at home in a bright console room made of more stairs than any sane person would ever put together. Jack was quite relieved to find that was a phase and not a trend, or it would shortly have become clear who inspired Escher to create his famous prints. As the Doctor lights a lamp and brings it along, Jack can see scattered tables covered in all sorts of things, cobbled together bits of electronics, hand-machined parts, well-worn tools, children’s toys. The walls are covered in children’s artwork. A tinkerer’s dream, here, if the tinkerer were dreaming impossible dreams and trying to cut them down to size.

“You’ve come for this,” the Doctor says abruptly. “An old man and his miscellany, an endless winter on a world barred from progress. A standoff to prevent the resumption of the Time War.” Back turned to Jack, he stands watching the banked fire. “There’s nothing else here, Jack.”

Setting down a half-finished mechanical train and leaving his bundle of clothing on the table, Jack returns to the Doctor, carefully winds arms around his waist and rests his chin on the Doctor’s shoulder. It is the first time they’ve touched since he woke up. “I came for you,” he says again, gently. “I’m not going to change my mind. You don’t have to be anyone but yourself; you don’t have to give me any more than you want to give me. You’re here, so I’m here. That’s all.”

The Doctor doesn’t pull away, but neither does he relax. Instead he reaches down, knocks knuckles just above his right knee. “My leg,” he says, sounding remote. “I lost it. A long time ago.”

“Alright.”

“ _Alright?_ ”

Jack chuckles. “Well, you don’t want me to say, _I’m so sorry_ , or _oh, how terrible_ , do you? You get by. I admit I didn’t think Time Lords were prone to crippling injury, for the most part?”

“No TARDIS,” the Doctor sighs, and leans back against him, finally. “No proper medical facilities. Could’ve gone topside, I suppose, but they were having some difficulties at the time as well. Smashed my knee irretrievably. Yes, I get by.” He is still for a minute, then pulls away. “I really am going back to bed, though. I suppose you’ll want to as well?”

“Wouldn’t mind,” Jack admits. “I’ve had easier days.” He follows the Doctor through the workshop to the bedroom, grabbing his donated clothing on the way, wondering that the last Time Lord should have done exactly this every day for three hundred years. Jack knows three hundred years. He doesn’t know it spent in one unchanging place; but perhaps now, eventually, he will. Surely this seige will break before then. The Doctor hangs his cane on the headboard of the bed in absent habit; as he pivots to the chair where his dressing gown and nightshirt are laid he lists to the side alarmingly and Jack reaches out to cup a hand under his elbow.

“I don't need help,” the Doctor says crossly, and Jack winces.

“I know, I'm sorry, I just… I'll learn,” he promises. “Do you… have an extra toothbrush?” When he returns from the bathroom the Doctor is already in bed, tucked up under the blankets, pressed against the wall at the far side of the bed. It doesn't seem ideal for two people, and Jack pauses for a moment, bare feet cold on the stone floor.

“Well? Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” the Doctor huffs.

Jack smiles, but doesn’t laugh, at the long striped nightcap the Doctor is wearing. “You’ve been alone too long,” he says as he slips in. The Doctor rolls onto his side and presses back insistently against him, reaching to pull Jack’s arm around his chest. He is thinner than Jack expects, just a little; he squirms around to arrange things to his comfort. “Forgotten how to interact with people.”

“I’m very good at interacting with people. I teach all the children.”

“And every one of them will always be a child to you.” Jack shakes his head. He's done staying too long, too. “I know -”

“Jack. Just… shut up. For a little while.” The Doctor pulls at his arm again, tucks his foot between Jack’s ankles. “Please.”

Caught by surprise, Jack closes his eyes and nods, kisses his lover’s neck. Bending his knees slightly he tucks the Doctor in close to him, left arm pillowing his head, right hand pressed between his hearts. Intertwining his fingers with Jack’s, the Doctor sighs and gradually relaxes. The silence stretches, but Jack is content to wait here as long as the Doctor wants him, his lonely wanderer caught fast in his arms; without the wandering, he must have been only terribly lonely. After a while, Jack kisses his neck again and says, “You’re not alone anymore.”

“I know,” the Doctor replies quietly. “First the TARDIS came back; now you. Jack, I can’t tell you… she’s my third heart, you know, it was…” He swallows, and whispers, “I wish you’d got here sooner.”

Jack is not petty enough to say anything about all the heartbreak and time waiting he has spent on the Doctor, and in the circumstances is ashamed to think it at all. “I wish I had too. It turns out to be rather difficult to trace the source of a message broadcast across space and time; it wasn’t even obvious it _had_ a source, at first. You'll have noticed everyone here early has time travel. I thought following the TARDIS was safer than trying to hitch a ride or checking the history books, but…”

“Never check the history books,” the Doctor agrees. “Not for something you might be involved with.”

“I know,” Jack says, remembering. He frees his hand briefly to snuff the lamp, then burrows back under the blankets. Lit only by the banked fire now, the room is dark and close and Jack is surrounded by the smell of the Doctor, warm and tired and content. “I'm here now.”

Capturing his hand again, the Doctor says sleepily, “I knew you would… Do you know, I fell from orbit, once. I had an impact suit, but you probably saw more of it than I did anyway; I got the helmet on backwards. You wouldn't believe how many police boxes they used to have around.” Jack hasn't heard this story before, but yes, he would; he never could stop his heart leaping in hope, falling in disappointment, each time he saw one. Those were hard years. “Funny thing, I forget about a lot of it, a lot of the time. But there’s so much out there… I'm afraid you'll regret coming here, Jack. It's no sort of life for you.”

Jack shakes his head. “Never. I never regret the lives I live with people I love. There's nowhere I'd rather be.” The Doctor falls silent and Jack holds him tight until he falls asleep. Maybe truth isn't so bad after all.

-+-+-+-

 


	4. Nothing changes

“What is this, Doctor? You said there was the wooden one, but -” Jack turns, and the Doctor is shocked by the feeling of desecration that tears into him.

“Put him down,” he snaps, throwing himself to his feet. Jack recoils, and pales as the Doctor snatches Handles out of his hands, shoves him out of the way with a shoulder.

“Sorry, I'm sorry -”

The apology grates too. Interfering interloper, here without invitation, barging his way in where he doesn't belong, an unwelcome reminder of life beyond this dark little world. All those years of utter, terrifying aloneness; but he had Handles, and a little bit of Tasha, and the neverending stream of children to take his mind off it. Children are good for that.

“He was my friend,” the Doctor says shortly, cradling the tarnished head, scarred metal worn smooth and dull by time. He sets it back carefully on the stand at the back of his workshop. “A good and faithful friend.”

Jack's hand touches his back tentatively. “Doctor -”

“It was Clara's fault the TARDIS took so long to come back,” he says, irritation driving a spiteful outburst. “Couldn't just _live her life_ like a decent human being. Have parties, make soufflés. That's usually all you humans want to do. And you! You weren't here at all, of course. Finally got your wish, I suppose.” He turns to glare at Jack, ignoring the lost look in his eyes. “Finally I was the one who had to wait.”

Jack stares at him, an old pain deepening the lines of his face. “I wouldn't wish that on anyone.”

But he had, hadn't he? _For once,_ he had said, _let me be the one who doesn't do the waiting._

No, he hadn't; not yet. And the Doctor will go to his grave without seeing that Jack again, that older Jack who nursed him through the worst of his previous fight with mortality, the Jack who fights back, who loves the worst of him.

Burning fingertips against his face, Jack's worried eyes peering close. “Doctor. _Doctor._ ” He sucks in a painful breath and Jack frowns in concern. “Who… who else did you lose?”

 _You,_ he does not say. Will never say. “Everyone. Everything.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Yes,” _you will_ , the Doctor disagrees, but Jack takes it for agreement and tugs him close, one hand rubbing firmly up and down his back, the other cupping the back of his neck, the steady heat of him deeply comforting as always. He shudders in confusion, in relief. Of course he hasn't lost Jack. Jack is Jack. Nothing more dependable in all the universe. Eyes falling closed, the Doctor hides his face against his lover's shoulder, hands creeping around to fist tightly in the back of his jumper.

“It's alright,” Jack says softly. “I'm here. If you want to talk, if you don't want to talk, if you want to yell at me… if you want me to go away.”

“Don't go.”

Jack sighs. “I won't. Even if you told me to, I wouldn't go far. But really,” he chuckles, and it jostles the Doctor, as close as he is pressed. “A lot of people have found some good catharsis in yelling at me. Feel free.”

The Doctor can't think immediately why the offer seems so wrong. It's what they always do, after all, push back and forth at each other, sarcastic jabs and all; lance the pain of the long years, the losses that go on and on and on, the impossible choices that circumstance and experience force on them. But this is something different. Too resigned, too… true.

Truth is dangerous, between them; and here they are living on top of a truth field.

Without the sarcasm, without the distancing lies, all their habits of sharpness with each other will only cause pain. He is certain Jack has already realised this, and yet here he is asking for it, offering himself up to bear the pain he wants to save the Doctor from, asking nothing in return, holding nothing back.

Sighing, the Doctor turns his head so he is not muffled by Jack's shoulder. “I don't want to yell at you.”

“That’s more common than I want to admit,” Jack says, and then sighs too. “This truth field makes conversations with you very different than I'm used to,” he complains, mildly.

The Doctor laughs, and if it is a bit forced no one comments. “True. Both true. But no good would come of it, here.” He reaches out, touches Handles gently with a finger. “I called him Handles; if he minded, he never said. Strange, I know, but he was someone to talk to, all those years. I just can't get the parts, anymore… We all run down, eventually. But I kept hoping. I keep hoping.”

“Yes,” Jack says, holding him tight. “You do.”

-+-+-

In a strange, slow dance of reacquaintance, they begin to feel out each other’s edges, the scars and sharp barbs, the soft places where hurt lingers, the pieces that still fit together after so long. Jack is, on the surface, very much as the Doctor remembers him, brash and sarcastic and charming and loving by turns, sometimes in the same sentence. He nudges the Doctor's shoulder gently with his as he asks whether it won't be nice to have someone around to fetch and carry and do the fighting parts again. He fills the lamps and stocks the firewood and takes the laundry to be washed and fits himself in with a brazen cheerfulness as if there had been an empty space the Doctor simply had not seen, as if centuries had not happened, and watches with a wistful reserve when he thinks the Doctor too busy to see him. It feels at once like a whirlwind and like the aftermath of throwing a stone into a pool of water. Everything changes; nothing changes.

The Doctor wakes in the morning pressed close to Jack’s blazing brightness, and all the day the brightness lingers, and when he turns out the lamp at bedtime he does not need to long for the starry darkness he has left behind, because the universe has come to him.

“How long will you stay?” he asks one morning, feeling reckless.

“You know me,” Jack says, pillow half over his face. He is still there in the bed every morning, although the Doctor doesn’t think he sleeps any more than he ever has. “Overstay my welcome every time.”

“You never have.”

A strange choked noise comes from beneath the pillow, and Jack pulls the Doctor closer against his side. “First time for everything.” The Doctor waits, burrows his foot under Jack’s to steal a little more warmth. Finally he says softly, “Forever, then.”

It won’t be any sort of forever, but the truth field only works for known things. The Doctor holds him tight and doesn’t answer, savoring the warmth of the moment, wondering at the pain Jack won’t show him. Very much the same on the surface, but beneath… perhaps the same as well. Perhaps he just didn’t notice it, so long ago.

-+-+-

Although occasionally accused of hedonism, it is more correct to say that Jack prefers to take his pleasures where he can find them and reduce suffering where possible. He has therefore taken up carpentry; no need to suffer the Doctor's bed, especially when he can’t bear to get up and leave the Doctor alone in it. Reasonable enough for one person but tight for two, be they ever so friendly. Olvir, one of the four carpenters in Christmas, is quickly becoming a good friend.

“You saw me, up there, you said.” Jack looks up from the rail he is sanding to see the Doctor watching him from the bench by the workshop door; he must be done with his teaching for the day. “That was not long before I ended up here. But you sent me back so far, Jack, you were so young… You were so terribly hurt. Was I right, to do as I did? I couldn't bear to hurt you any more.”

“You gave me hope.” A hope and a promise that have guided him for so long; that guide him still. “That's never wrong.”

“A hope you had to hide from me for centuries. A hope that made you trust where you oughtn't.”

Letting go the pleasant trance of hand-crafting, Jack sets aside his sanding cloth, leaves the rail propped on his knee. It’s no work of art, but neither is he a complete amateur, and with Olvir offering guidance and help at need he should end up with a perfectly serviceable bed. At first the Doctor had protested: his bed is _already_ perfectly serviceable, there isn’t room, a larger mattress is more trouble than it’s worth. But Jack was determined, and uncomfortable, and well able to deal with turning out a larger mattress, and rather than give up his warmth the Doctor had given in and pretended to ignore the entire effort. He is still doing so, as if he doesn’t believe Jack is here, is staying. “You’re still on about that.”

“ _I’m_ still… _You’ve_ never let me apologise! And every time I think I have, I do something new!”

Hiding his smile, Jack composes his face into an expression of grave interest. “Ah. And what new thing would you like to apologise for?”

The Doctor scowls at him. “That is not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I think it probably is, but I have time. You’ve been apologising for centuries, Doctor. What do I have to do to convince you to stop?” Leaning back against the wall, the Doctor considers Jack thoughtfully, scowl fading. His hands rest on his cane, propped between his knees; his right knee is working better after a study of that wooden Cyberman. Finally Jack sighs resignedly, and prompts, “Go on.” Somehow he has walked into a trap, he recognises the signs; the Doctor is going to say something Jack will regret.

With a sideways nod of acknowledgement, the Doctor says, “Stop apologising for not being what I need.”

Exhaling carefully, Jack is silent as he waits to feel the pain of that cut. Too sharp to even feel the blade slide beneath his skin, and maybe if he doesn’t move he can yet avoid evisceration - Cool fingers on the back of his neck, the Doctor’s cheek pressed against his. “Because it’s _not true_ ,” he insists. “I didn’t mean… There, see? I’m sorry, Jack, I’m sorry again.”

But of course it's true. If Jack had ever once been what the Doctor needed, he would have come to him, would have relied on him, wouldn't he? It wouldn't be Jack forever waiting, forever left behind, forever a responsibility weighing down and not a support bearing him up. Jack wondering for four hundred years whether the Doctor had finally broken his promise and forgotten him; even the great relief of finding out he had not couldn't fully soothe the sting of not being considered a source of comfort in the first place. Distraction, amusement; nothing more.

The Doctor straightens, looks down at him with regret; he takes the bed rail and leans it against the wall, which is why he's not a carpenter. “Come home, Captain, come home now. Someone will have brought by food.” He tugs and Jack stands mechanically, racks the bed rail with his other work, tidies his tools and sweeps up his dust, pulls on his coat and hat and follows. The shock of cold air is good for him, the sky gleaming with the fast-moving sparks of ships, stars a dimmer background. No snow today, and in fact it is unseasonably warm; he barely wants the hat. Always the cold places, with the Doctor. Couldn’t they get stranded in some tropical paradise, one day?

By the time they reach the tower, evening greetings exchanged with half the town it seems, Jack has put aside the pain. He knows his place, knows the Doctor loves him; it was only hearing the Doctor say it so plainly that made him forget for a moment. It’s good enough - it is, debatably, _better_ \- to be what the Doctor _wants_ , what he enjoys, as it’s clear, here, that he is. No one can be another’s everything, and Jack has never enjoyed trying; those relationships don’t tend to end well. But those times where anyone at all, or no one, have been preferable to Jack… those are hard to forget.

Jack hangs up their coats as the Doctor sets out the food. The bread is still warm. “Must have been Easen’s turn tonight,” Jack says around a mouthful. “He makes the best bread.”

“Easen?” The Doctor stares at his bread for a moment. “Oh, yes. Must have learned to bake from his grandmother. He was knee-high to a frostfinch just the other day.”

“They all were,” Jack mumbles. He hasn’t been here long enough for the people to lose their distinctiveness yet, but eventually they will, the world outside flowing by like sand around the unchanging center of the Doctor in the tower. Time flows like that around Jack anywhere he goes, soon enough; it’s why he keeps moving on. It’s why the Doctor never stayed, before.

“Jack,” the Doctor says, impatiently, as if he has been trying to get Jack’s attention.

“What?” His supper is gone. The Doctor's hand is open on the table, reaching for him; Jack presses it between his, warming his lover's cold fingers, wondering what he missed.

“You have been what I needed. You are.”

Even the Doctor cannot lie, here, so Jack has to ascribe it to a difference in meanings of words. “It's kind of you to say,” Jack says, and the Doctor frowns, frustrated. “It's alright. I hadn't realised I was… trying to make up for it, quite so much. I'll stop. But you stop, too. What we did wrong, we put right; I wouldn't go back and undo it all, Doctor.”

“Then why have you been trying to apologise for not stopping me?” He is shortly going to have to start apologising for not _giving it up_ -!

“Because it _hurt you_ , Doctor, in all sorts of ways, and I'd rather have spared you that! Because wherever you went afterward, you never quite came back to me. Because maybe if I ever succeeded, you’d rely on me again.” The truth field would be a lot easier to deal with if it didn’t also have a tendency to make him confess _extra_ truths. Standing despite the Doctor's attempt to hold onto him, Jack turns away, paces before the fire. “Because it's been there between us, and nothing I can do takes the guilt out of your eyes, even after all these years.”

The Doctor laughs, sharp and bitter. “Fine pair we make. I'd rather not have hurt you, too. But if it was worth it to you, Jack, it was worth it to me as well. I strongly suspect the only real alternative was avoiding you for the rest of my life, and I can't stand the thought. I really can't.”

The stark honesty in his voice stops Jack in his tracks. He has come to think of those years as a sort of personal crucible, when he thinks of them at all; razed to the ground and built back stronger, strong enough to endure the centuries and millennia and timespans beyond human comprehension ahead of him. But he had never imagined any good had come to the Doctor from it. “You think we had to…? But then what are _you_ apologising for?”

“There's no justifying what I did to you, Jack.” His smile is twisted and terrible, pain and regret driving that self-loathing he rarely lets out anymore. “But I can't even feel proper remorse for it, if the alternative was nothing at all, and even so all I do with our time together is hurt you again and again. What is there to do but apologise?”

Jack sighs, feeling strangely at peace. Down to the bottom again, and what else is there to do, indeed? He goes to the Doctor, kneels beside his chair, takes his hands. “Accept it,” Jack says softly. “Accept it, and let it go, and… live. Live with me, Doctor.”

For a minute or a few he is silent, and Jack waits; he will always wait. Then the Doctor leans down to kiss his forehead and murmurs, “For you, I'll try. My Captain.”

-+-+-+-

 


	5. All joyous things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _NSFW. Only sweetness here._

Every new day, the Doctor tries to forget the memories Jack has brought back with him; every new day, he tries to live. His _try_ , he fancies, is better than most people’s _do_ , so it goes fairly well. Jack seems happy enough; he makes friends among the townspeople, telling stories of distant lands and praising anyone’s cooking with outrageous but largely sincere flattery. To make up for the Doctor, he says. He dances with anyone who wants dancing, he helps anyone who needs help. He delights the children with his designs for roof-mounted slingshots for the town’s defence, and they are shortly commandeered for large-scale snow fights. Soon enough the Doctor’s Captain seems to have always been there.

He finishes the bed, and the Doctor has to admit it is more comfortable. Finding a bearable level of discomfort has been so much a part of his life for so long now it’s hard to remember he might aspire to a higher goal, every once in a while.

“I told you,” Jack says happily, stretched out in the new bed at the end of the day. The Doctor is pressed against his side as usual, enjoying the furnace heat of him, but not as tightly as before. And neither of them have to worry about running into the jarringly cold wall. “It fits. It’s delightful. And you like it.”

“Yes, alright.” Rolling his eyes, the Doctor shifts around on the new mattress, trying to find a softer spot. “You were right, there, is that what you want? I haven’t had the energy to make my life _comfortable_ , Jack, good enough to get by is how things are around here.”

“Seems a shame.”

The Doctor sighs, and turns so his back is to Jack. “Three hundred years. You know how long that is. My TARDIS was gone. It’s cold, and dark, and there isn’t nearly enough to tinker with, and every blasted prosthesis I’ve made hurts _somewhere_ but damned if I’m going to get around by _hopping_. And my TARDIS.” He closes his eyes, sinking with relief into that familiar bond. What _could_ be comfortable, without her? The best he could do is try to forget. Her song is warm and welcoming, a deep note of joy that fizzes in his nose, vibrates between his fingers, reverberates in his bones.

“Oh,” Jack breathes, rolling over to catch the Doctor up in his arms; he can hear her as well, of course, if she wills. For a time they are simply together, Jack's nose pressed to the back of the Doctor's head, warm breath stirring his hair. “Better now,” Jack whispers.

“Better now,” the Doctor agrees, but he can never quite forget how temporary it is. He has tried to stop apologising, for now, but it feels more like saving it up. _Wherever you went afterward, you never quite came back to me._ Until Jack said it, the Doctor had not considered overmuch how his repeated returns to Jack-on-Bellacosa would impact Jack's past self; it was Jack-on-Bellacosa who healed him again, after all, and to whom he returned when the universe thought him dead, and when he lost his Ponds, and when he had to face his own true death, here at the end of his last life. For him, it has been too easy to think of all aspects of his immortal lover as simply _Jack_. Jack has been everything he needed him to be, but the Jack beside him hasn’t lived it yet; eventually the Doctor will have to send him away so he can. He wonders if he will be allowed to apologise for that.

“Hey, handsome,” Jack rumbles, rubbing circles over his breastbone. “You're sad again. Stop that. The TARDIS is here. I'm here. The bed is big and warm and the fire is bright.” He slides his hand down, light fingertips followed by palm, until he cups the end of the Doctor's leg. It's not something he had expected to enjoy, touching there, but Jack delights in reminding him that pain doesn't preclude pleasure. “Does anything hurt?”

The Doctor scoffs gently. “What a question. We're not all perpetually thirty seven. Maybe it does,” he admits, as Jack massages carefully, soothing the sore spots, “but I'm not going to tell you to stop.”

“Hm.” The Doctor can hear the smile. “What else won't you tell me to stop?” He rolls his hips against the Doctor's backside, kisses the back of his neck; a pleasant shiver runs through the Doctor as Jack's tongue wanders tantalisingly close to his ear.

“That either,” he says, tilting his head to allow better access, reaching back to pull Jack firmly against him. “As long as I can stay under the blankets.”

Jack hums agreeably, tongue temporarily occupied with the Doctor's ear. He is rubbing the Doctor's leg now in delightfully firm strokes from hip to end, progressing slowly around to more interesting territory; now heavy and warm up the side of his thigh, now deliberately firm down the curve of his arse, now fingers curling around to the inside of his thigh, pushing his leg up, a single finger trailing up the crease of his arse, back down again to press against him, intimate and insistent. “Jack,” he moans, eyes closed, willing to be done to, today. A chuckle, and the hand moves on, down to the end of his leg to encourage it up further. The Doctor leans back against his lover and lets his legs splay open in relaxed surrender, cherishing the half-voiced imprecations, the pause of Jack's hand, the way he buries his face in the curve of the Doctor's shoulder.

“You did that on purpose,” Jack accuses after a moment; his hand resumes its slow slide up the inside of the Doctor's thigh, fire flowing in its wake, calloused fingertips rough on sensitive skin.

Trying to deny it seems like a waste of breath, even if it is his usual part in their mock-adversarial banter. “As you will, Captain,” he murmurs instead, utterly safe in this gentle surrender; it brings out a deep protectiveness in Jack that he can rarely indulge with the adamantly uncooperative Time Lord.

“When you say that,” Jack whispers, barely a breath, “I hear _I love you_.” He kisses the Doctor's shoulder, the back of his neck, and then Jack's fingers end their progress in an exploration of the crease between leg and body, fleeting touches occasionally straying further. Despite the pleasant shivers it sends through him it is _not_ what he had in mind and it's not long before he growls in frustration. Jack chuckles. “You said I could do as I like. Impatient already?”

“No,” the Doctor denies, squirming in the vain hope of maneuvering his cock under Jack's hand. He may not be able to lie, but he can manage a few half-truths, here and there, after so many years of acclimation. Extracting his arm from beneath the Doctor's head, Jack shifts away slightly, letting the Doctor roll to his back. His right hand is still teasing, now drawing abstract shapes with searing fingertips, now laying the whole of his hand against the Doctor's flushed skin to heat it further. “Tease,” the Doctor sighs, and tilts his face up for a kiss.

“Always.” Propped up on his elbow, Jack smiles down at him; his eyes seem the colour of winter sky before snow, if the sky were lit by a sun whose rays never linger here. The occasional silver hair catches the firelight like sparks, shifting and dancing as he leans down. His lips move over the Doctor's, light kisses at the corners of his mouth, a touch of his tongue, and he smiles when the Doctor makes an impatient noise; as if he had been waiting for a signal, his mouth comes down firm over the Doctor's, tongue slipping between his lips. Muscles the Doctor hadn't realised were tense relax, leaving him draped against Jack, sunk into the mattress, moaning quietly as all his wanting is temporarily satiated.

Always fire he sees in Jack, his eternal light in the darkness, a flame as constant as existence itself made incarnate. Loving him, being loved by him, is always a little bit of loving life, cozying up to the infinite as he has always had a tendency to do; but it's also loving Jack. Maybe he shouldn't have to just imagine the Doctor saying so. “I -” the Doctor starts, forgetting the extra tongue in his mouth - despite his enthusiastic participation it's not as if he thinks of only one thing at a time very often.

Long-suffering look spoiled by his grin, Jack rolls his eyes. “Always the distractions with you. What now?”

“I do love you,” the Doctor says, before he forgets that it’s important again. Jack's face goes blank for a moment and his hand stills its progress back, back; then his lips quirk up quizzically as he searches the Doctor's face. “I do,” he insists, raising a hand to cup Jack's cheek.

His smile turns warm. “I know. You don't have to say it.”

“I just -” The Doctor gasps as warm fingers cinch tight around the base of his cock.

“You’re obviously still thinking far too much,” Jack says fondly. “Stop it.” Eyes falling closed, the Doctor mumbles something - he's not sure what, and it doesn't gain any clarity on its way out - turns his face into his Captain's chest, and lets Jack take him away from thought. Slow and steady, there is no urgency to it, no need unmet, just a glowing warmth expanding through him until all his skin burns with a pleasant ache to be touched. He nuzzles into Jack, delighting in the smell of him but disappointed it is fabric and not skin he is pressed against.

“Why are you wearing clothes,” the Doctor mumbles; the question seems subtly wrong somehow.

Jack’s laughter rumbles through his chest, through the Doctor’s bones. “Because I share a bed with a very affectionate ice lolly. But I’m always happy to get rid of them for you.” He rolls away, which is a disappointment, but soon is back, urging the Doctor to sit up so he can pull off his nightshirt as well.

Burrowing back under the blankets quickly, the Doctor plasters himself against Jack and sighs happily. “Much better.”

“Easily pleased, at least.” Jack’s hands on his back, one slipping down to his arse, pulling him close, his own hands simply holding on. Jack groans as their cocks slide together, and the Doctor throws his leg over Jack’s hip, opening himself up to the fingers pressing gently against him.

“Please,” he says, and Jack presses a little harder for a moment, then pulls away, reaching behind him for something. “Jack, please.”

Kissing the side of his head - what he can reach with the Doctor’s face pressed tight to his shoulder - Jack murmurs, “Hush now, you don't have to beg.” His fingers are back, slick and warm, and the anticipation feels unbearable at first as he rubs slowly back and forth; but oddly the more of the Doctor’s attention is caught up in motion and arousal, the feeling of open vulnerability, the less remains to anticipate. Soon he is returned to the relaxed centeredness of earlier, moaning unselfconsciously, and only then does Jack slip a finger in, a second when he takes the first easily. “Yes, oh yes, this, love you, want you, yes,” Jack murmurs disjointedly, between more kisses of the Doctor's head, fingers moving with the languid roll of his hips; he seems to possess no sense of urgency today.

When the Doctor turns his face up he decides it must be because Jack has no sense at all; now his kisses are falling indiscriminately over the Doctor's face. He laughs, startled, as one narrowly misses his eye, protests the one that covers his nose. “Jack! What are you doing?”

Momentarily uncertain, Jack's eyes focus on his face; then he crooks his fingers. As the Doctor moans, Jack says with a smile of deep satisfaction, “You. Roll over?” The Doctor rolls to his belly but Jack tugs at him until he comes up to his other side, then shifts around behind him. The hand smoothing down the back of his right thigh, the solid heat nudging his arse suggestively, sets the Doctor to moaning again and Jack hums contentedly as he kisses the back of his neck. “Comfortable?”

“Yes,” the Doctor says, and slips a hand behind him to finally wrap his fingers around Jack’s cock.

“Hey -” Jack says, but he can’t keep his hips from thrusting and the Doctor’s aim is true; Jack enters him with an easy suddenness and what was probably going to be a complaint becomes instead, to the Doctor’s delight, a loud and brilliantly articulated groan. “You -” Jack pants, “you -”

“ _Now_ I am impatient,” the Doctor says, breathless as well as the hard length of Jack's cock sinks slowly deeper, stretching him, filling him up.

Jack growls and bites his shoulder, not hard but firmly; the Doctor welcomes the shudder that shakes him at the possessive gesture, the instincts telling him to fight any such thing muted in the presence of Jack's deep and steady still point. How should he battle eternity, deny time's claim on him here of all places? As before Jack releases him when he relaxes into it, seeking no more than he can give, no more than he promised at the beginning. “You just,” Jack says against his shoulder, as he grips his hip tightly and begins to move, “Don’t. Stop. _Pushing_.”

And it’s true, it’s some kind of profound statement about his life but at the same time it’s just here, just now, just him and Jack in this tiny warm world they inhabit together; but if he pushes then Jack pulls, always pulling him in like gravity, the sun he orbits in a wide, wild path across the sky -

He pushes, and Jack pulls, and together they set the dark ablaze.

The Doctor has rarely felt more secure than he does in this moment, held tight to the still point at the centre of time, contained in Jack’s arms and containing him in turn, the slow undulation of his hips denying any possibility of urgency. “There’s no hurry,” Jack whispers. “There’s today. There’s tomorrow.” It’s true - it’s true in ways that have never been true for them before - but someday it won’t be; after perihelion, after all, motion continues. The Doctor closes his eyes and tries to forget.

Jack is crooning soothing nonsense in his ear, mad promises of time and tomorrows, stars and skies and all joyous things. He pulls the Doctor’s leg up, pulls him in tight, sets his palm to the Doctor’s cock. The sudden burn of it clears the clinging web of unwelcome thoughts and finally, for now, the Doctor forgets. He moans, words he doesn’t remember, incoherent pleas and promises of his own; laces his fingers with Jack’s so that everything is together, that everything they are might be intertwined. Even his mental shields are soft, although the depth of love Jack feels for him nearly ruins him.

“Love you,” Jack is drawn taut, quivering, “need you - come for me, Doctor, please -” and then the sharpness of his movements catches up to the Doctor all at once and he bites his lip hard as he sobs out his release, Jack crying out in relief behind him, hips jerking uncoordinated before he falls still. He kisses the Doctor’s shoulder, neck, the back of his head, over and over again, silently, and his arms don’t loosen.

When they have both caught their breaths and the kisses have slowed to less of a mindless rain, the Doctor says, “I don’t think I know how to stop pushing. I’m sorry.”

“Never change,” Jack mumbles.

“I change all the time.”

Reluctantly, Jack pulls away from him and laughs. “Not that part. Never that part. I don’t want to get up…” He rolls over, rummages around; it lets cold air into the blankets and the Doctor grumbles. “Here. Who needs pajama bottoms. Ingenuity strikes again.”

“That’s not _ingenuity_ , Jack,” the Doctor protests, but it’s better than getting out of a warm bed.

“Fine, laziness strikes again. No complaining.” He wraps the Doctor in his arms again, and there is nothing left to complain about.

-+-+-+-

 


	6. Every new day

Life in Christmas is not exciting, except when it is; which is often enough that no one wishes for more. It ticks along at a steady pace outside the tower, minutes of sun and slight seasonal change, harvests and storms and births and deaths, lessons learned and children grown. For years after Jack’s arrival he is the most exciting thing in town, and amusing as it is at first, it begins to wear thin.

Inside the tower, there is no seasonal variation, no change from year to year. If they did not go out, there would be no sunlight to mark the days. Although the Doctor can reach out and catch each moment as it passes if he wills, examine it in passing and find the threads that lead to other moments, Jack begins to think he is actively suppressing his time sense; often he reaches for Jack only to sit unmoving against him, fallen into that deep stillness he feels at the fixed point inside.

“I've been here too long,” he says, when Jack asks why. “All these lives passing me by, watching the pier as the ship sails away. They go, and go, and I can't bear the loss, Jack. Every one I keep alive is a victory, but the time has passed that I could be a real part of any of it.”

“You teach the children,” Jack says. Surely that counts as being _part of it_. He can't remember ever staying somewhere so long there was nothing left but habit keeping him there.

“Well, you know. Have to pass the time somehow,” the Doctor says, but a small smile hovers about his mouth. He isn’t quite as disconnected as he has convinced himself he is. “Every once in a while someone worth the effort comes along. Have you met Barnable?”

Jack rolls his eyes at the mention of the only name the Doctor bothers remembering with any consistency. “Day I got here. You're slipping, Doc, and don't tell me you're getting old. You're letting it all fall through your fingers like sand.”

“Well, really, Jack, what's the point, when -” But he doesn't finish the thought, even with an encouraging noise from Jack. “It's easier this way,” he says instead. He never says much about the time before Jack came, but it's obvious it left deep scars. Although he is no longer alone it often seems he is mourning, but for what or whom he won’t say; and Jack has found no sign that anyone has lived in the tower with him before now. Aside from Handles, of course, and the crack in the universe asking its unceasing question.

“I didn't come here to help you run away,” Jack says as he pushes away from the table and stands. When he looks up he surprises a wild, fearful look on the Doctor's face, the tense stillness of waiting for a blow to fall. _How long_ will he have to stay for the Doctor to believe him -? He holds out his hand. “Stop that. I'm not leaving. Come walk with me. It's cold and dark but it's a different day than yesterday, and tomorrow won't be the same.” There is a lot of cold and dark in Jack's future, but maybe if he can remember the Doctor being with him it won't be so bad. Face shadowed, the Time Lord looks him over; then he nods, and takes Jack's hand.

It is cold and dark, but the windows and streetlamps and trees of the square glow bright and the sky is full of light: the dim, still pinpricks of stars, the fast falling flashes of orbiting ships, and the steady gleam of the moons. A breeze scatters chaff and pieces of the seedpods the children pick and eat raw or roasted in the autumn, and the snow gleams in crusted over drifts in corners; it hasn't snowed in weeks. Jack barely notices the smell of woodsmoke anymore, but the breeze brings the clean air of the forests and the contrast is startling. Bells chime softly in the trees, and birds sing, and people about their evening tasks call greetings, and Jack weaves his fingers with his lover's and takes hold of the moment.

“Today,” he says with a wide gesture of presentation. “Time’s perpetual gift.”

“Hm,” the Doctor says, attempting to paste a doubtful frown over his smile. The lines worn into his face seem content to show both at once. “I bet you say that to all the days.”

Jack nods seriously. “Every new day. But especially,” he raises the Doctor’s hand to his mouth and kisses each knuckle, watching his face, “the ones with you in them.”

“You are a shameless flatterer,” the Doctor replies; it is, of course, true. But he pulls Jack to him and kisses him soundly, right there in the square, in the fresh open air, and today? Today is definitely a gift.

-+-+-

The supposed alliance topside is falling apart; no surprise when Daleks are a part of it. Shaky at making friends on the best of days, their assault on the Papal Mainframe seems to have made them bolder in their relations with their neighbors despite its limited success. The Doctor had expected an increase in enemies on the surface with the Church compromised, but instead there has been a lull these - five years? Six? All the action has been topside, and Jack can't say he's disappointed. A little bit of boredom doesn’t bother him. It provides him days like today, where he can take a long walk outside the town and see more of this world he may be living in for a very long time.

A load of snow thumps wetly to the ground half a metre to his right, accompanied by faint laughter. “Oi!” Jack calls. “Your aim is off!”

“Warning shot, Captain!” someone yells back, probably Ashra. She seems to have become the ringleader of the slingshot brigade.

The next shot takes him in the chest.

Sputtering, Jack wipes the snow off himself as best he can. Some days he has second thoughts about those things. But at least the kids are keeping them in good repair until they are needed. He raises his fist in a suitably villainous fashion and shakes it. “You won’t be rid of me that easily! I -” he jumps to the side as another load of snow sails toward him, “have supper to eat!” Laughing, Jack runs for the tower, leaving the chorus of objections behind.

Supper is indeed set out, but the Doctor is not in evidence. “Doc?” Jack calls, poking his head into the bedroom. He is unlikely to be out at this hour, although he has been making an effort lately. Pulling his coat back on, Jack climbs the stairs to the top of the tower, where he finds the Doctor standing, staring out over the town.

“Those kids will be the death of me,” Jack grumbles halfheartedly as he comes to stand at his lover’s side.

Eyeing him tolerantly, the Doctor snorts. “That’ll be the day.”

Jack chuckles. “Won’t they be surprised.” Quite a few things have been the death of him, and then been very surprised shortly afterward. The neverending potential for tasteless jokes is a small consolation prize, but consolation nonetheless. At least the Doctor is more willing to put up with it, these days; time was he would be arguing at the first hint of morbid humour. He gestures at the sky. “Saw a couple more ships go up, today.” Between the Papal Mainframe and the still significant amount of non-Dalek ships in orbit, the Daleks are not yet willing to commit to large-scale offensives; but the conflicts are growing, and the destruction of a ship makes for a brief but impressive fireworks show for those on the ground.

The Doctor nods. “I was talking to Tasha. It’s all very inconvenient, I used to just go up there, did you know?” Jack hums agreeably, and does not say _you’ve said_. Easier just to let him say again. “It made the lonely time more bearable, I suppose. But now we actually need to talk, and I daren’t - she said it was hard enough keeping control of her people when you were there.”

“Brrr.” Jack shudders, remembering that interview. The stuttering Cleric, the Dalek eyestalk. He’s been on the wrong end of a Dalek far too many times. “Yeah, let’s not. Come inside?”

“You’re fussing again.”

Jack sighs. There is, he has found, no correct answer to that accusation. “I’m hungry. I missed you. Just hoping to take care of both problems at once.”

“That’s a sad indictment of your life, don’t you think? You saw me not eight hours ago.” His eyes are still on the sky; sometimes he has a hard time coming back, after being reminded of all he has given up.

Jack turns to go; there’s always tomorrow. “You’re being an arse again.” Halfway through his supper the Doctor appears, sits with him silently. He sulks as Jack describes his walk west of town, through the managed forests that cover broad hills. The land flattens out further that way; in the minutes of daylight Jack had caught glimpses of light reflecting from water, well beyond a half-day’s walk.

“Nice hobby, if you can get it,” the Doctor grumbles. Tethered to the tower and the crack in the universe as he is, the Doctor has done very little wandering. “They do have maps, you know.”

“Yes,” Jack says peaceably, “I know. Soup?” The Doctor glares at him, then hands his bowl over; Jack hides a smile. “I’m sorry you were lonely.”

“I -” the Doctor reflexively starts to deny, before thinking better of it. Returning his gaze noncommittally, Jack waits until he looks away and swallows. “Maybe a little. You’re not very _good_ at staying, are you?”

 _Ah hah_. Worried he'll wander so far he ends up on a different planet without noticing. Jack reaches for the Doctor's hand, rubs his palm with his thumb, and doesn’t say, _better than you are_. “It's true, my _stay_ is rubbish,” he admits wryly. “But my recall is excellent.”

“Your - _Jack_.” The Doctor rolls his eyes, but doesn't fight the smile creeping across his face. Jack winks. “You come when I call, hm?”

“Oh yes. I'll come for you anytime, darling.”

“Don't I know it.”

Jack chuckles as the Doctor pretends exasperation, relieved to have solved tonight's sulk before bedtime. “What did Her Worshipfulness want?”

“A warning, mostly. She expects attempts on us to resume shortly.” The Doctor frowns. “The Daleks have been picking off uncrewed sentries and scaring off those with smaller presences topside, but they’re settling down. She’s called in another few hundred Clerics and such, along with a substantial medical presence to see what can be done about all the Dalek puppets. It’s exhausting her, keeping everyone together.”

“I can imagine. So, hostilities to resume on the home front. The kids have been practicing their slingshot skills diligently, so there’s that.”

The Doctor stares at him, brow furrowed; his hand clenches into a fist in Jack’s grasp. “Jack, you aren’t letting the _children_ fight.”

“You think I could _stop_ them?” Jack laughs and shakes his head. “Ashra is fifteen, Doctor. Barnable is sixteen. Have you noticed? He's been making _improvements_. At least this keeps them back a bit.”

“I do the fighting, Jack. I do the protecting. It’s what I’m here for.”

Smiling, Jack pushes his bowl out of the way and gathers the Doctor’s hands between his. “ _We_ do the protecting, Doctor. Together.”

Not a day later, the first attack of Jack's tenure on Trenzalore comes: in the morning, in the coiling mist, no one even sees what it is before the deep _whumph_ of the Mainframe's weaponry destroys it right in the town square.

“Well, that'll ruin the day,” the Doctor grumbles, poking through what wreckage is left with his cane shortly afterwards. “And there's nothing useful left at all here. May not have been in the first place.”

“Just junk?” Jack asks, surprised. “They were looking to get a read on reaction time, you think?” Lowering his lamp, he toes over a piece of twisted metal, but even with good lighting it is unidentifiable. Still, it seems like a best case scenario. “Ruin the day how?”

“Atmospheric effects.” He sounds disgusted, and wanders off to his morning lessons.

The mist clears as the gusty wind picks up, and as Jack watches over the next few hours from the top of the tower, fascinated, clouds seem to roll into being from nothing in a soaring column above the town. Atmospheric effects indeed, and unseasonable weather, and it doesn't ruin Jack's day even a little bit. Eventually the Doctor comes in search of him.

“What are you doing, Captain?”

Without turning, Jack says, as if it should be obvious, “Standing in the rain.” He is fairly certainly it _should_ be obvious, in fact: on the roof, in the rain, coat off, face to the sky, what _else_ could he be doing?

Far enough down the stairs to be safely dry, the Doctor opines, “You'll catch your death.” Jack just laughs.

-+-+-+-

 


	7. Accretion

Hand still on the door, Jack pauses, confused. He had expected to find Barnable here, that joyful laugh of his cheering the empty spaces of the tower as the Doctor shows him some clever trick of toymaking or looks over his drafts of curious inventions. Jack has just been with the rest of the older children, setting up a new catapult and discussing a system of tripwires; the attacks have been testing probes so far, but that will change. Surely the boy ought to have been one or the other place. “Doc? Where's Barnable?”

“I'm hardly his keeper, Jack,” the Doctor grumbles, from one of his worktables. “How should I know?”

“Just thought he'd be here. He wasn't helping with the catapults.”

“That… does seem unusual. He hasn't been by today. I didn’t see him yesterday either, I don't think.”

Putting his hat back on, Jack opens the door. “I'll just go by and check. Won't be long.” It's a nice enough walk, but Jack isn't certain he will ever get used to the nearly constant darkness. The Doctor seems used to it, but he has had three hundred years to become so and Jack devoutly hopes they will not be stuck here another three hundred.

Jack knocks at the door of the farmhouse that was his first sight of this world - aside from the brief aerial view, and the nearby field he had made a hole in - and waits. Presently he hears voices from inside, and the door opens to Doree’s smiling face.

“Captain! What a pleasant surprise. Will you come in?”

“For a moment,” Jack allows, knocking his boots clean and stepping in. The whole town calls him _the Captain_ ; apparently it goes better with _the Doctor_. The Doctor, of course, calls him Jack, and always will. “I’ve just come to make sure nothing’s happened to Barnable. We missed him today.”

Her smile fades a bit. “I’ll let him know you stopped by; he’ll be glad. He gets these terrible headaches sometimes, that can lay him up for days. Has done for years. I expect he’ll be up to his usual mischief tomorrow.” Despite her reassurances she looks far from certain, but the next day Barnable is there as if he had never been gone, shy smile hovering about his lips.

“You’re alright?” Jack asks, looking him over, disturbed that he had thought the boy simply unreliable, rather than ever really noticing his frequent absences.

“Fine now, Captain. Can’t keep me down for long.”

“Irrepressible,” Jack agrees, slinging an arm about his thin shoulders and pulling him close. “A ray of light in this dark world.” Barnable rolls his eyes, leans against him for a moment, then wanders off to find the Doctor, bright yellow hair gleaming like a torch.

-+-+-

“You'd take him with you, wouldn't you.” Jack is leaning against the wall by the top of the stairs. He has been there, silent, for some time, wrapped in his own thoughts as the Doctor has been wrapped in his. “Show him the universe.”

“I would ask,” the Doctor acknowledges. Clever, curious Barnable; it's a waste, that he should be confined here all his life, suffering from a condition treatable in many other places, his only sight of the stars the dim view afforded them by the ever-circling wolves.

Jack chuckles. “He would go. Follow you anywhere, that boy.”

“You would know.”

“I would know,” he agrees, without rancor, and falls silent again.

After that Jack begins to find more reasons to ask Barnable to come by, or simply to mention interesting things the Doctor is working on. If he goes out for the day, he asks Barnable to stop in and make sure the Doctor eats lunch; if the boy has nowhere he needs to be after lessons, and he often seems not to, Jack shamelessly begs his help with nearly anything that needs doing. It is a delight, having him about; his nimble fingers to carve a fiddly joint, his steady hands to draft, his quick mind to bounce ideas off of, to absorb with enthusiasm any interesting thing the Doctor might say.

The days he isn't about are _boring_.

Not to say that Jack is boring, of course. He is always ready with a helping hand if the Doctor needs it - if he asks it - if Jack is home at all. It's not the same.

Sometimes the Doctor finishes what he's working on, looks around, and discovers he is alone. He never knows quite whether he was expecting to be, anymore, and it's confusing; some days he forgets entirely and expects only loneliness, some days he wonders where everyone's got off to, without being quite sure who he was expecting. And some days are just very, very disappointing.

“Barnable?” the Doctor calls hopefully, and then after a silence, “Jack?” less hopefully. He _knows_ when Jack is about.

There is no tea laid out in the kitchen, so Jack meant either to be gone a long while or not long at all; the Doctor wonders which. He drifts into the bedroom and has just decided to go for a walk when he hears Jack's voice. “You have to push back,” Jack is saying as he opens the door. “He likes people who argue with him.”

“Only if it's you,” Barnable replies, which is… probably a fair accusation, given his experience. The Doctor listens from the bedroom, never one to give up an opportunity to eavesdrop. Especially when it’s about him.

Jack laughs. They’ve been fetching firewood, apparently; another log for the fire, logs stacked beside. “We do have our moments. This is almost the longest we've ever spent together; not sure what we'll do when we get sick of each other.” Feeling uncomfortably well understood, the Doctor scowls. He forgets, sometimes, how well Jack does know him already; but that’s no excuse for being _right_ all the time. The Doctor resolves not to get sick of him. “But no, I meant more… people of conviction. If you know something, dig your heels in. If you hold an opinion, hold it strongly. Maybe you'll find out you're wrong, but maybe not. You do that already when you tinker, when you build; you think something so strongly you make it into reality.” Movement in the workroom, then Jack’s voice again. “Huh. Maybe he went out.”

“Generally if I disagree with him, _I’m wrong_ , Captain,” Barnable points out acerbically. Hand over his face to muffle his amusement, the Doctor laughs appreciatively; the boy apparently has arguing with _Jack_ down to an art. Keep him on his toes.

Jack laughs as well. “Well, me too. It’s a work in progress. Don’t give up, Barney.” Daft nickname for a perfectly good name, if anyone cared to ask him, but he hasn’t heard Barnable object. “He might be smart - he is smart, though don’t tell him so, it swells his head - but he isn’t right all the time. And he needs people. Silly, brilliant, clever, brave, thoughtful, stubborn people. Especially stubborn people. Always has. Always will.”

Voice drifting further away, into the kitchen, Barnable admits, “Stubborn I can do. Mum says it ought to be my middle name.”

“Do you have a middle name?”

“Yes, but it's Winthrop after her grandda, which is rubbish. And no one uses anything but first names, so I don’t know why she bothers at all. I think she read it in a book.” Jack chuckles, and the Doctor can imagine Barnable’s happy grin.

“Suppose she must have. Tea?” Jack offers, advice hour with Captain Jack apparently over.

Soon enough Barnable leaves, Jack walking him to the door, inviting him back as always. When the Doctor finally pokes his head from the bedroom he finds Jack leaning on a table, arms crossed, looking straight at him with an expectant smirk on his face. The Doctor blinks. “You told Barnable I’d gone.”

“No, I didn’t. Never known you to miss a chance to eavesdrop.”

“Why encourage him so? We'll only lose him in the end, like everyone else.” Every glorious mortal life on this planet; the Doctor appreciates them from afar, and fights so they might live, but they do go by so quickly. It's one reason he has come to focus on the children. Growing up is an easier loss.

“That's no reason to shut yourself away. He’s good for you. You need people, Doctor, you’ve been so much happier since he started coming around on the regular. I can’t do that for you.” That humbling ability of his to accept, again; accept the Doctor's limitations and his own, and the limits of what they can be together. Two long-lived time travelers, too easy to fall into the river of time that sweeps them along, never stopping to see the moments and days and brightly blooming spectacles along the way.

What he may find at the end of that river, the Doctor is not yet ready to discover. But Jack is right. “We both need them,” he agrees, reaching out to lace his fingers with Jack's, find his place once again anchored here where time cannot steal him away. “We've neither of us been young in a long time.”

-+-+-

Jack accretes life, the Doctor decides; like some free-floating island, drifting on time's sea, subject to wind and tide but not of them. He trails his roots behind him, anchorless, alone; but everywhere he goes, others find a home among them.

For all the Doctor has taught each person in Christmas, and leaves his tower every morning to continue doing so, time has worn away any close connection he might once have had with the life of the town. He sits at the center, the spider in the web, the wizard in the tower; maybe even the Baba Yaga, the monster in the dark, whom tribute keeps pacified. They do bring him food, and clothe him, and give him their children - he mostly gives those back, though.

He is considering keeping Barnable.

When he tells Jack his fancy of reaching roots and lonely drifting, Jack wraps his arms around him and holds on tight. “I’m good,” he says, wistful and hopeful and sad, and the Doctor kisses him softly.

“I’m a terrible anchor, Jack,” he denies. “I’m rootless. I don’t accrete, I run away.”

Jack gives him the oddest look, but says only, “Worked for me so far. But you never know, maybe you’ll grow a few.” Laying his head against Jack's welcoming heat, the Doctor shakes his head silently; if he hasn’t yet, it seems very unlikely.

-+-+-

Barnable seems to come around nearly every day now, helping the Doctor with one thing or another, bringing the evening meal, making the tea; somehow never underfoot so much as simply present. One day Jack comes home to find him fast asleep on the lumpy old sofa with his head pillowed in the Doctor’s lap, the Doctor carding his golden haystack of hair pensively. “Best I can do,” he says quietly, at Jack’s inquiring look, “put him to sleep. I couldn’t bear to send him off to walk home in that much pain. Would you go tell Doree that he’s here? See if she’ll pack a change of clothes and anything else he needs. If anything helps.”

Throat tight, Jack nods. Even in sleep, Barnable’s mouth is tense in pain. “Of course. Do you need anything?”

“Not right now.” The Doctor looks up at him and smiles, and Jack takes the opportunity to kiss him tenderly, glad to find there is some small relief for the young man they are both coming to love. Impulsively he bends down to place a kiss on Barnable’s forehead as well. “Captain,” the Doctor says warningly; Jack raises his hands and smiles.

“No need for that tone. Everyone needs a bit of affection in their lives. Even you clever solitary types.” The Doctor ducks his head to hide a smile, and Jack turns to go with a spring in his step. He has always needed people to take care of; now his little flock has doubled in number.

-+-+-+-


	8. Too late

Flames crackle and voices are crying out all around, invisible and panicked behind the smoke and ash and dust, but Jack pauses. He thought he heard - there it is, the Doctor yelling at someone, back inside the fire and destruction at the edge of town that Jack is trying to get people _out_ of. Then weapon fire, where there should be no weapons, and _that_ was not the sort of noise Jack is comfortable hearing from the Doctor -!

“Doctor!” There is no answer and he can’t see a damned thing in the smoke, but Jack has a good idea where the Doctor was. He shakes off the hands clutching his coat, orders their owners onward, and runs, bent low to the ground. The glint of the sonic screwdriver catches his eye first; then the outstretched hand, the dark-against-dark pool of the Doctor's coat spread haphazardly over his body and the ground. Jack reaches for him, sucks a harsh breath through his teeth when his hand comes away wet.

There are voices in the smoke. “He was over here, sir.”

“I don't see anyone.” Sontarans again; lucky bastards, to have managed to sneak down in the chaos of the Dalek attack.

“Sir, he had the sonic device and attempted to engage in distracting speech. I shot him.”

Grabbing the sonic, Jack stands, teeth bared in a vicious grin. _Luck_ has never been his purview; he's always been better at helping other people run out of it.

-+-+-

Dirt in his mouth, there's dirt in his nose, and at first the Doctor can't remember why, or why that should be strange. _Snow_ , he thinks, should be snow. Or maybe mud. Not sharp, freshly broken dirt - and not the smell of smoke. Everything hurts terribly, radiating out from his side like a great sunburst, crackling through him again and again as each labored breath produces unavoidable movement. He had been… he had been… it'll come back. Jack is nearby; of course Jack is nearby. He'll take care of it, whatever it is.

The Doctor turns his head toward Jack's bright fire, but there is nothing to see. Then the clinging miasma of smoke and dust thins, a ragged curtain pulled back, and there is his Captain standing tall and square and solid, facing away, his long coat swirling about his legs. Protecting him, the Doctor realises as Jack shouts at unseen assailants, brandishing the sonic screwdriver.

“Hey! Potato-faced sons of a cloning vat! Yeah, you! And you! And anyone who looks like you. You want the man with the sonic? Well give it another try, and I hope you don't _give up_ too easily!”

And then he's gone, and how in blazes is that supposed to help, he's just - “Jack!” the Doctor cries, to no avail, as his steady flame winks out. They are going to have _words_ , later -! Sometime when pain and blood loss aren't crushing him into a mindless paste, perhaps. He tries to pull himself _somewhere_ , roll over, anything, but that just makes it worse and he collapses back onto his face with a shrill scream. When Jack comes back - when Jack comes back -

They're going to have to discuss priorities.

-+-+-

Jack has enough time to think, _fuck me, that was stupid_ , and be glad for the human frailties that let him die quickly, before he dies.

When next he is aware, he is no longer in possession of the sonic screwdriver, but the three Sontarans are advancing past him which is the sort of luck he never counts on. With a bit more - he moves cautiously, searching for rocks or debris, and finds a few decent chunks to hand. Grinning viciously, he rises to a crouch, takes careful aim, and launches them at those remarkably stupid probic vents.

Two of them go down before the third one turns, which is probably good enough. Jack launches himself at the last, a particularly spiky lump of debris in his hand; the Sontaran backs away in confusion. _Where_ is the damn Mainframe, they're supposed to notice when people bring interdicted weaponry down to the planet!

“I shot you,” he says, as if stating it might make it effective again.

Jack bares his teeth. “Then my attempt to bash in your head _is_ personal. I don't stay down. Leave.” The Sontaran is clearly considering shooting him again; Jack keeps an eye on him as he turns the other two over with his boot, kicks their guns away, and retrieves the sonic screwdriver. Making up his mind, the Sontaran begins to raise his arm. “I wouldn’t,” Jack says, aiming the screwdriver at him. “If you don’t leave now, I doubt you’ll be leaving at all.”

“That is not a weapon. You are unarmed.”

Hefting the rock he still carries, Jack eyes the Sontaran sceptically. “I don’t feel unarmed. And in any case, the Mainframe up there,” he gestures up, “is heavily armed, and shoots to kill. Really, leave.”

The gun lowers and Jack backs away warily for a few steps, then turns and jogs to where the Doctor lays. Where he had damn well better still be laying, breathing and all, and damn Jack's impulsiveness for that wasted time -! A soft moan rises as Jack checks the Doctor's pulse and he sighs in relief. No sign of that telltale golden glow, either.

“Any spinal injury?” The Doctor twitches his head side to side. “Alright. Gonna roll you over and we'll get out of here.” Very carefully, Jack does so, to find the Doctor watching him, jaw clenched in pain. “Safe to carry, you think?”

The Doctor nods once, sharply; he tries to choke back the sounds of pain as Jack lifts him but it just sounds worse that way and Jack regrets his pointless waste of time being dead even more. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I'm sorry, we'll get you fixed up, Doctor, go ahead and sleep.” Settling his head a little more securely against Jack's shoulder, the Doctor begins to relax, just a little.

Movement behind them, and Jack suddenly thinks to wonder if the Sontarans actually did leave.

“Are you stupid, boy? You have turned your back on a warrior of the glorious Sontaran Empire!”

“A lot of people have told me so,” Jack agrees, suspecting it might be particularly true today. “Personally, I don't think you have much standing -” He grunts, and staggers, crackling pain eating away at his back, his belly. He’s still standing so it can't have hit anything truly important, he's not going to scream, he's _not_ \- he's not going to drop the Doctor.

“Jack?” The Doctor's voice is thready, halfway to a healing coma as he was.

“I'm - it's going to be fine, Doctor, don't worry,” Jack says, not sure what will come out of his mouth if he tries to claim he himself is fine. Unsubstantiated claims about the future, though; those are fair game. The Doctor’s stock in trade. Jack laughs quietly, then grits his teeth and resolves to save that for after he revives. He staggers forward. “Lisbet? Arnie?” he calls, and a wave of red rolls across his vision. How much further?

The _whumph_ of the Mainframe’s weaponry comes from behind him, finally, and there’s that taken care of. Late, too late, leaving it up to unarmed civilians and children with slingshots, what kind of operation is this? His mind is seeping out to join the smoke. Those human frailties aren’t so convenient, this time. “Lisbet! Arnie!”

“Captain!” comes the return, and he nearly stumbles to his knees. But he wouldn’t get up if he did, and he can’t drop the Doctor, he _can’t_.

Figures in the smoke, then, and Arnie yells, “They’re over here! They’re both here!” One foot in front of the other. “Captain. Captain!” Shaking him lightly, concerned face close to his. Jack sinks to his knees, tries not to jostle the Doctor.

“Healing coma,” he says, as careful arms take the Doctor from him. “Blood loss, got shot, be gentle.” He sways, closes his eyes. “Be right back,” he mumbles, as he loses track of which way is up and the waiting chasm of pain swallows him down.

-+-+-

This time when Jack revives he is being carried - he is nearly being dropped, which certainly isn’t the first time that’s happened.

“Oh, shit! Sorry, you startled me, Captain, uh…” Arnie is staring down at him, eyes wide as saucers, arms hooked under his; Olvir has his feet. “Are you…”

Plastering a reassuring smile on his face, Jack says, “Yep, all better. Thanks, Arnie, Olvir.” After a pause, he suggests, “You can put me down now.” It always takes people oddly, the first time or three. He had been very clear that, as a casualty, he was to be absolutely last priority; with a great deal of scowling and grumbling the Doctor had signed off on it. He hopes at least that part went to plan. As he gets his feet back under him, he inquires anxiously, “The Doctor?”

“We took him to the clinic.”

Jack starts walking before Arnie finishes his sentence. “Alright. Other casualties?” The pause makes him look around in concern.

“Maeve,” Arnie offers softly.

Olvir’s throat is working convulsively. Maeve, his sister; Maeve of the wide eyes and long looks and pointed silences; Maeve whom Jack knows well, coming around to the carpentry all the time as she does. Did. Jack stops his headlong rush to the clinic. “Maeve,” Olvir echoes, “and Rikard, and all three of the kids. Their house, it’s just…”

It had been nearly suppertime when the bombardment started; Jack had run outside at the first whistling whine in spinal reflex, much too familiar with the sound of artillery, as the Doctor climbed the stairs to ring the bell. No explosions, only a series of shocks through the ground, crashing thuds, splintering wood - and a Dalek ship in the sky. Not artillery, nothing smart, nothing the Church could track easily; they were dropping rocks on the town. Despite the casualties, Jack is intensely thankful for the failure of aim that left most of the town intact. Or will do, as long as the fires are under control.

“I’m so sorry, Olvir.” Grasping his arm, Jack searches his face; he has the closed, shallow look of someone too shocked to process yet. “What are you doing out here?”

With an unconvincing attempt at a grin, Olvir says, “Keeping busy, Captain. Go on. Six others injured, and they’re… they’re a bit shorthanded -” He turns away abruptly. Maeve had worked at the clinic.

Jack squeezes his arm. “Alright. Plenty to do. Remember to take breaks,” he adds, eyeing Arnie significantly. Arnie nods, and Jack goes on toward the clinic. He is the recipient of a few startled looks on the way; the people who saw him looking very dead, he assumes. He nods at each of them, but doesn’t stop.

The clinic is running over like a disturbed anthill, extra beds set up, concerned loved ones tucked into corners or shooed away or being pressed into service fetching water, bandages, clothing, whatever is needed. No one shoos Jack away, or sends him to fetch anything; instead people nod to him, and leave a silent space around him. Always a little separate, he belongs to the tower, not the town. He belongs to the Doctor.

The town’s medical doctor, Gemma, pauses by Jack’s side. “I don’t believe we’ll lose anyone else, Captain. But the clinic notes suggest the Doctor ought to be in some sort of healing coma, and he’s not. He’s delirious. Will you look in on him?”

The confirmation that the Doctor has not been injured this badly in living memory is reassuring, but the rest - “Yes, he ought to be. I thought he was. Thank you.” She points him toward the back and is gone again, back to her more tractable patients.

Lying in bed, face nearly as pale as the sheets, dark hair framing his head and startling dark shadows under his eyes, the Doctor looks terrifyingly vulnerable. Jack has to stamp down hard on the impulse to scoop him up and carry him home, or better yet the TARDIS, somewhere safe and familiar and _defensible_. He has been stripped of his dirty, bloody clothes - Jack will burn them if they haven’t been already, he never wants to see that coat again - and dressed in a soft grey shirt; his wooden leg leans next to the bed, beside his boots. His head moves restlessly, lips failing to form intelligible words.

“He’s been like this,” a quiet voice says. Startled, Jack tears his eyes from his lover. Barnable is sitting beside the bed, not unexpectedly in fact, only Jack hadn’t noticed anything but the Doctor. “I don’t know what he’s saying - I think it’s a another language - but he’s upset. I didn’t want to leave him alone.”

Suddenly intensely grateful to not be the only one here to bear the burden of loving the Doctor, Jack nods to him. “Thank you, Barney. I'm sure it's helping. He ought to have put himself in a healing coma, I thought he _did_ -” Going to the other side of the bed, Jack lays his hand on the Doctor's forehead; but as soon as he does, the Doctor's head jerks and he moans painfully. Forcibly recalled to the time long ago when his touch was both torment and balm to the man before him, Jack freezes, unsure what to do.

“Jack,” the Doctor whispers, finally intelligible. His hand lifts slightly as if to reach for him, then falls back to the bed, and Jack decides maintaining contact is the safest thing, for now.

“I’m here, Doctor.”

“Was it a building again,” the Doctor mumbles. “They don’t make them like they used to…”

“No, I don’t think so.” Jack looks to Barnable. “Do you know, did he have any other injuries?”

Barnable shakes his head. “Just the one, left side just under his ribs, came from the front. And scrapes and bruises from falling. Terrible bloody mess on his right side, but -”

“That one went through me,” Jack says, pulling his coat aside to show the matching mess on his shirt, and Barnable's face goes white. Reaching across the bed to grip his hand reassuringly, Jack points out, “I'm fine. No building, Doctor.” Jack smooths his hand across the Doctor’s forehead, traces his brow with his thumb. He isn’t restless anymore, but leaning into Jack’s touch, eyelids twitching. “Just a face-off with some Sontarans that didn’t go as you’d hoped. You need to be sleeping. Bit of sleep and you’ll be good as new.”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor whispers; Jack’s breath catches in his throat at the utter sincerity. Sorry for _what?_ “Please don’t go.” He sounds so hopelessly resigned, even as he begs Jack to stay, but when has Jack _ever_ gone when the Doctor needed him?

“Sorry for what? I’m not going anywhere, I keep telling you.” Bending down, he kisses the Doctor gently, then pulls a chair up to the bed for himself. Taking up the Doctor’s limp hand, he laces their fingers together and lays his head down against the Doctor’s shoulder. “I won’t leave you,” he promises as he promised so long ago. “Sleep, anwylyd, I’ll stay with you.”

-+-+-+-

 


	9. Priorities

With the Doctor safely ensconced in his own bed, there is nothing for Jack to do. He ought to be heading up the rescue efforts, but they are done and everyone accounted for. He ought to be putting out fires, but they’re mostly out. He ought to be coordinating _something_ , but this town has had three hundred years under siege to develop systems and plans for this sort of thing, even if this was worse than most, and they don’t need him. And he promised he would stay with the Doctor.

So he stays. He spends his time alternately pacing and carving a new cane for the Doctor; his old one fell where he did, and because the destroyed areas were let burn the longest Jack does not expect to find it. Certainly not in usable condition. But he is sure to want one straightaway. Not much for rest and recovery, the Doctor.

It is hours later when Jack hears the voice of the Mother Superious from above. He blinks, suddenly aware of dry eyes strained from the dim light. “Doctor! I would speak with you,” she calls, and Jack stomps angrily to the top of the tower.

“Yeah? Well you’re stuck with me. Bugger off.”

Her face, projected in the sky, regards him impassively. “Captain Jack Harkness. You are a man of many names, but none of them are the Doctor.”

“I’m the Doctor’s Captain, and I’ll answer his calls if I want to. He nearly died today because you took so long getting to those Sontarans, so like I said, you’re stuck with me. Go home and upgrade your defensive strategy. The Daleks could have leveled the town with a little more precision on those rocks.”

“Perhaps you ought to have thought twice before demonstrating the success of unguided ballistics.”

Flipping her off with both hands, Jack turns to go back down. “You’re not pinning this on me. Do your job.”

“Please convey to the Doctor Our sincere wishes for his quick recovery.” Jack pauses, then continues down the stairs without answering. Maybe if he remembers, by the time the Doctor is in any state to be receiving wishes. Whenever that might be.

-+-+-

“He doesn't _look_ better,” Barnable whispers, peering in at the Doctor doubtfully. “He looks…”

Reminded of too many other perilous situations, Jack snaps, “He's not dead.” When he glances away from the Doctor, Barnable has eased back, eyeing him worriedly as if he thinks Jack might bite. “Sorry,” Jack says, attempting to modulate his tone. “He's supposed to do this, just… trust me. I've seen him much worse off.”

“What does he look like when he's worse?”

Always asking the important questions, Barnable. The Doctor calls him sensible; it's a high compliment. “If you ever see him start glowing, just back away quickly and yell for me.”

Wide-eyed, Barnable looks again at the Doctor and back to Jack. “Could you fix him, then?”

“Gods of mercy, Barney…” Or why else call for him, Jack supposes. Not sure whether to laugh or cry, Jack rubs his hand over his face to block out the faith in those eyes. What would life be like, if he could fix people at will? But even if he could, the Doctor would never forgive him for it. “Probably not,” he admits unwillingly, turning away. “Just go sit with him, alright? I don't know when he'll wake up, and I don't want him to be alone.”

-+-+-

Jack is fussing again. To be fair, he is trying not to, and the Doctor can see that; but that just makes it worse because now he is annoyed at Jack _and_ annoyed at himself for being annoyed. Not to mention all the other things there are to be annoyed with. Like the stabbing pain in his side, which he doesn’t intend to admit to in the slightest. Taking a deep breath, the Doctor listens to the TARDIS sing at the bottom of his mind for a moment.

“Jack,” he says, accidentally interrupting him and getting a sharp look in return. “Sorry. But you can’t very well expect me to just lie here for days.”

Jack sighs, and gives him a long-suffering look. His personal wellbeing is the only topic on which he can neither command nor cajole his Captain; but he can still complain. “No, I don’t, alright? But I do expect you to lie there for more than half an hour after you wake up.”

“How _much_ longer?” Now the infernal man looks like he is trying to hold back laughter; a snort breaks through, and then he sniggers. The Doctor crosses his arms and glares at Jack. It would be much more satisfying if Jack would just get annoyed _back_. “What?”

“You. Just you,” Jack says fondly. He sits on the edge of the bed and reaches out to cup the Doctor's face, strokes his cheekbone with his thumb. “How can you be fifteen hundred years old and still so childish?”

“What's the point of growing up if you can't be childish sometimes?”

“I never thought there was much of a _point_ to it. Just better than the alternative.” A quick twitch of regret. “Mostly.”

“Well,” the Doctor says, giving up his annoyance, “no wonder you're so boring.” Too late, he realises Jack has yet to fully understand the limitations of the truth field; a flash of pain crosses his face, quickly hidden under a carefree smile. He had resolved _not_ to make comments like that, for just this reason - and because Jack is far from stupid. “Right now,” the Doctor clarifies, trying to assuage the hurt without giving up much ground. “You’re boring right now, and I'm childish.”

“To each their own, I suppose,” Jack says agreeably, but his hand drops from the Doctor's face and he feels the loss keenly. “Guess I shouldn't worry, it's not like you'd be hard to chase down. I haven't finished your new cane yet.”

The Doctor glances, startled, at the headboard where his cane ought to hang, then frowns at his lover. “New cane, what happened to the old one?”

“Left it, when I was carrying you. Most of that area burned.”

“I _liked_ that cane.”

“ _Thank you, Jack_ ,” Jack suggests sarcastically. “ _I know how much it bothers you when I get myself nearly killed, Jack. I appreciate your dedicated care, Jack._ ”

The Doctor waves his hand irritably. Not as satisfying as he had expected, actually, making Jack annoyed. “This is a siege. A war. You came here on your own, I'm not apologising for it. Sontarans, wasn't it? Rocks for brains… What else, there was something else… Priorities! Captain, we need to talk about _priorities_.” Jack blinks at him, face scrunching up quizzically. Suddenly seized with the - possibly childish - urge to trace all the charmingly asymmetric lines that have taken over his lover's face, the Doctor stares back for a moment - but now is not the time.

“Like… not getting killed?” Jack ventures, as the Doctor pauses.

“Yes, precisely!” Jack looks relieved, but only for a moment. “What in Rassilon’s name did you think you were doing, taking my sonic and running off like some posturing chimp, _daring_ them to shoot you? And me lying there bleeding out? You are a reckless idiot, Captain, and you talk a good talk but I hardly feel any need to apologise for getting injured to the man who throws himself on grenades apparently _for the fun of it!_ ”

Face gone red, Jack stares at him fixedly. He is sitting ramrod straight now, hands fisted at his sides; he looks like he would rather be standing. So would the Doctor, for that matter, but they’ll have to make do. “Yes, that was really fucking stupid of me. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It happens, when people hurt you.”

“Then you're a liability, Captain!” the Doctor snaps, and Jack goes redder. “This town, this planet, _these people_ , are protected because I am here. I face the enemies, I take the risks, because that is _why I am here_. This is a long, long game, Jack, and you can support me, or you can leave. There’s no room for stupid heroics. I don’t engage in them. I won’t have you doing so either.”

Jack swallows. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “No heroics. No throwing myself on grenades for the fun of it.”

“And no arguing when I need to take risks.”

He looks like he is choking down curdled milk. “Alright,” Jack agrees, finally, without even attempting to argue; he must have been feeling terribly guilty already.

“Thank you,” the Doctor says, feeling bad for nailing Jack to the wall with a mistake he has already suffered for; but he needed that agreement. “Thank you for taking care of me, Jack.”

Shrugging a shoulder awkwardly, Jack looks away. “It’s what I do.”

Slipping his right hand under Jack’s, still balled in a fist at his side, the Doctor offers in the spirit of truce, “A day in bed, will that be enough?”

Glancing back at him, one side of Jack’s mouth tugs upward in reluctant amusement. He rubs the Doctor’s palm with his thumb reassuringly. “A whole day; an unprecedented offer. One day, _if_ it no longer hurts with pressure.”

“Fine,” the Doctor agrees, grudgingly. Pain is subjective, and self-reported.

“I’ll bring you books, Barnable will be by. You’ll survive.”

“I’ve done a great lot of _surviving_ , Jack, it’s not as good as _living_.” Picking desultorily at the quilt with his other hand, the Doctor tries to resign himself to bed. “Barnable is alright then; good.”

“He sat with you for a while, whilst you were healing. Been in and out, taking care of things.” Looking conflicted, Jack climbs over his leg to lay on the bed beside him. He is silent for a while, head resting against the Doctor’s shoulder; oddly it feels as though he is looking for comfort. Then he says, hesitantly, “Doctor, you didn’t go into the healing coma right away. You were delirious.”

And what damage has he done now, inadvertently? Although he has tried to keep his and Jack’s timelines more-or-less linear in relation to each other, after that notable diversion, there are a great many things he can’t discuss. All the time on Bellacosa that this Jack hasn’t lived yet is the tip of a half-forgotten iceberg. Jack accepts that he keeps secrets, but he doesn’t like it; he would listen with a keen ear to any delirious ramblings. The Doctor prompts Jack to continue with an inquiring noise, rather than risking words.

“You asked if it was a building again.” That can’t be the worrying part, buildings fall on him with some regularity. Or did, long ago. Have done here, once or twice, as well, actually, come to think of it - “And you said _I’m sorry_ , and you begged me not to go. _Begged_ me, Doctor, and it sounded like you had no hope of it at all.” He sounds shattered; the Doctor daren’t roll onto his side just yet but he takes up Jack’s hand and kisses his hair. “Why did you - why would I - I _never_ would, I wouldn’t leave you when you need me.”

“I don’t know why I said it, Jack,” the Doctor says, the best he can manage when the memories are crowding around all unwanted. He can’t think what about the situation would make him say such a thing - a building? There was one time, maybe - but nothing could make this Jack leave him, that much is true. Even so he can’t answer Jack’s questions at all, can’t agree that he would never leave; can’t reassure him that he doesn’t change into someone he would not, now, choose to be. Time changes all things. Closing his eyes, the Doctor pulls him into a kiss that feels a little desperate on Jack’s side, a little dishonest on his own. He tries to make it reassuring, instead. When Jack seems calmer, he offers the best truth he has. “There is very little I've encountered more constant than your love for me.” None of it had ever been, will ever be, a failure of love. Jack's face is unreadable; it is such an unusual thing for the Doctor to say that he can't help but take note, but it also answers none of his questions. “I don’t know why I said it. I’m sorry.”

It’s not good enough; Jack knows full well how he weasels around with words, has accused the Doctor of it often enough. But the literal truth of the statements is enough to stop his questions for now, to soothe the hurt enough to go on.

-+-+-

“Captain Jack Harkness, speak with me,” comes the summons of the Mother Superious the next day. After a moment, she adds, “Please,” and Jack sighs, takes his feet off the table, and stands, setting down the Doctor's nearly-finished cane. Between the Church and the Doctor, he knows his place, but a little courtesy eases things along significantly.

“I'm not _dead_ ,” the Doctor calls from the bedroom, sounding every inch the old curmudgeon.

“You were in the healing coma last time she called,” Jack explains as he pulls his coat on. He eyes his house shoes, then shrugs; she can't expect formality calling at any random hour. “Oh. She wanted me to give you her wishes for a quick recovery.”

“Well done on that.” Grinning unrepentantly, Jack pokes his head in the door to blow the Doctor a kiss, which he turns up his nose at. “I don't accept affection over air.”

“Well. Gimme a minute.” Smile tugging at his lips, Jack jogs up the stairs. “Yes, milady,” he says, with a sweeping bow. “Your servant.”

When he straightens, she is smiling faintly. “The Doctor is well, then? His wounds are not life-threatening?”

“They were,” Jack corrects. “He heals quickly. Keeping him still until he does is the hardest part.”

“I wish you every joy of it,” she says, looking glad to be in orbit. “And the best of luck.”

Jack grins. “I have my ways.”

Eyebrow raised, the Mother Superious points out, “ _In bed_ is very different from _lying still_ , Captain Harkness, and I think the Doctor is much better at one than the other.”

Reminded that he is a relative newcomer here, Jack eyes her suspiciously. “Something here I'm missing out on?”

“Quite a lot, most likely.”

Weary of her smirk suddenly, and resentful of being called away from the Doctor to no purpose, Jack turns to go. “If you're so concerned why don't you get your feet dirty and come down here yourself. I'm not your message boy.”

“Perhaps I will,” she replies as he stomps down the stairs, and Jack sighs. His temper, again; and he _just_ told the Doctor he wouldn't go around throwing himself at grenades.

He hangs his coat and leans in the doorway to the bedroom. “I may have just invited your esteemed colleague to tea.”

“What?” The Doctor's head jerks up from his book in surprise. “She's never come down here. I don't think she's allowed. Condition of the truce.”

“What truce?” With a wry grin, Jack dismisses the problem. “Well, she's gone for now, in any case. So.” Toeing off his shoes, Jack climbs into bed, insinuating himself with exaggerated care between the Doctor and his book until the Doctor tries half-heartedly to shove him away.

“What are you doing, Jack,” he says as one would to a very large dog who mistakenly fancies itself a lap dog: annoyed, resigned, and better than half amused.

Nuzzling into his shoulder, Jack tries to get hair in his mouth just to be more of a nuisance. “Hand-carrying my affection.”

-+-+-+-

 


	10. Make me no promises

“Jack,” the Doctor says, something unreadable in his voice. Jack looks up to see him leaning against the wall, holding Jack's old coat oddly. Looking at the back of it, he realises after a moment. “You carried me.”

“I did,” Jack agrees, with no idea where this is going. Up and about again, the Doctor has been moody and thoughtful, kind to Barnable and affectionate with Jack, but without his usual _joie de vivre_.

“There were Sontarans. You carried me away. You didn't kill them, did you. You turned your back on a Sontaran.” He pokes his fingers through the hole in the back of the coat. “This was a lethal shot.”

Jack nods. “Fortunately not as quick as the first.”

“Fortunately -!” The Doctor gapes at him. “You are a reckless idiot, Captain, and now you're telling me you're a masochistic one, too?”

Beginning to feel a bit attacked, Jack replies tartly, “No, I'm telling you we'd both be a lot worse off if I had keeled over on the spot. You were already in a bad way, Doctor, and yes,” he says, to forestall the remark the Doctor has begun opening his mouth to make, “I'm a reckless idiot, and I'm sorry. Again. But I'm not sorry for… whatever else this is you want me to be sorry for.”

“I want you to be sorry for going around getting yourself killed all the time!” The Doctor glares angrily at him over the coat he is still holding tight to his chest, which strikes Jack suddenly as a rather endearing juxtaposition. Standing, he comes to lean against the table in front of the Doctor, arms crossed loosely.

“I'm not,” he says gently. Little words. Little words and truth, for these times. “I'm sorry it hurts you. I don't want to hurt you.”

Looking away, the Doctor swallows. “It's why I said that. I woke up a bit, I think, when they were carrying me in, and you weren't there. You weren't anywhere. It reminded me -” But there he cuts himself off, with a look Jack recognises. _Too much truth._ “It's terrifying, Jack, you have no idea.”

It doesn't come close to a real explanation, but it's something. Half a something. Better than nothing, better than _I don't know why, let's just forget about it._ Probably. It's all he'll get, in any case. “Alright. I am sorry I was gone when you needed me, and I'll try to think things through better in future. But, Doctor, if the choice is me or you getting hurt, it's me every time.”

The Doctor turns away, but not before Jack sees the old, deep pain on his face. He steps forward, wraps the last Time Lord in his arms. “Jack -”

“Not because you're more important,” Jack promises. “Not because people need you. Not because you're the only one who can save the day, or any of the other reasons. I know how much it hurts, believe me, Doctor. They believe, and they walk to their deaths, and you go on, and on, and on.” And sometimes you crack, and go insane for a decade or a century; what's not to love? Bowing his head, Jack inhales the scent of the Doctor, wool and smoke and old books and time and the sweetness of his skin. Sometimes you find a touchstone. “Not for any noble reason, Doctor. Just because I'm a reckless idiot who loves you. Always have been. Always will be.”

Face hidden in Jack's smoky, singed coat, the Doctor whispers, “No promises, Jack, make me no promises, and I'll tell you no lies.”

It seems innocuous at first, and Jack lets it pass; but that night he remembers, and lies awake wondering. He has made promises; he often does. Has the Doctor been lying to him, somehow, even here?

He often does.

-+-+-

The rest of the week is nothing but annoyances and arguments, it seems. And funerals, which are neither, but still unpleasant. Jack is upset with him and makes himself scarce as much as he can bear to, helping in the clinic or with clearing away debris or beginning to rebuild. But he drops back by every few hours, apparently just to snipe at him about _overdoing it_ and _take it easy_ and _tired of hauling your bloody unconscious body around_ , and then apologise, over and over. It is absolutely infuriating, and in the quieter moments, very worrying. He doesn't _think_ this is Jack's usual reaction to stress, but it might very well be - he hasn't stayed around for the aftermath in a long time. A man like Jack must accumulate a vast array of traumas and triggers, and it's almost certain some of them specifically involve the Doctor.

He can't help right now, either. As much as he tries to deny it, he _did_ overdo it, and Jack had to pick up the pieces again. And in any case, there is tea with Tasha to get ready for.

Finally the day arrives, and she appears before the tower in a swirl of fine ice crystals and quickly dissipating warm air. “Tash, darling. Finally made it down here.” Taking her hand, the Doctor bows over it and brings it to his lips briefly. “You look radiant as always.”

Tasha looks him over judiciously. “You're looking well enough. I could hardly pass up your Captain's gracious invitation to visit.” There is a quiet snort from the stairs where Jack waits, arms crossed forbiddingly. But he did invite her; he can keep it to himself.

“Won't you come in? It's a bit colder than you're used to.” Her skirt seems quite impractical for snow and stairs. Offering her an arm, the Doctor helps her up the stairs as Jack opens the door for them.

“It really doesn't bother me,” she points out.

“Oh, yes, that whole… _dead_ , thing. How is that coming along?” Jack rolls his eyes and the Doctor knocks his shin with his cane as he passes. _Be polite_ , he mouths; Jack settles to parade rest, looking stuffed. The Doctor sighs.

Shaking her head unhappily, Tasha looks around. “Very little progress, so far. We remain hopeful. This is very… homey. Charming. All these drawings, from the children?” She pauses. “Are there a great _many_ children, then?”

The Doctor laughs. “Well, they grow up. And then there are more. So yes, a great many. I tell them stories. Here, look.” He draws her to the right and taps a picture just over head height with the handle of his cane. “There’s one of you.”

She squints up at it doubtfully. “Are you certain? That looks like…”

“It’s a sword,” the Doctor cuts in, before she can malign the artistic abilities of his children any further. “Only I tell them you protect us, up there, and they’ve all seen invaders destroyed, so the concept found expression as a sword… Nevermind. It’s all a bit homemade, leg included, nothing fancy here.”

“I don’t need fancy, Doctor, I have enough of it forced upon me. It’s nice to get away, even if strictly speaking I oughtn’t to be down here. But you certainly can’t come up for tea, right now.” She smiles at him warmly, and he smiles as well, and then Jack is at his back, winding strong arms around his waist, settling his chin possessively on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“Jack?”

He doesn’t answer, but Tasha’s gaze shifts to Jack, sharp and curious, and she laughs. “Down, boy. I didn’t take you for the jealous type.”

“ _Jack_.” The Doctor tries to turn to see him, but he is holding too tight. “I’m not a _territory_. And it’s not Tasha’s fault I was injured. Be pleasant or go away.”

Jack presses closer for a moment, curving against his back, turns his face to the Doctor’s neck and kisses it, lips softly open. His breath swirls warm into the Doctor’s collar. If it weren’t for trying to have a conversation, it wouldn’t take much convincing to let him stay, really; it’s positively sinful how sensuous the man can be when he puts his mind to it. Just as well neither of them put much store by sin. His Captain’s arms tighten as he leans back, hands flat against his ribs to feel every breath, every quickening beat of his hearts - “Yes, Doctor,” Jack says quietly, letting his lips trail up the Doctor’s neck as he pulls away.

The Doctor shivers. “Erm,” he says, suddenly remembering again the conversation he had been trying to have. “Yes, well. Good.” Tasha is watching him, amused.

“Speechless,” she observes, one dark eyebrow elegantly arched. “Will wonders never cease.”

-+-+-

Jack is _not_ usually the jealous type, but something about the familiarity between the Doctor and Tasha Lem, the reminder of the three hundred years he wasn't here, raises his hackles something fierce. It is embarrassingly reassuring to find that he can still claim the Doctor's attention so thoroughly, whirl him away with a touch, a breath, a whisper in his ear. Content for now, Jack leaves them to the rather abbreviated tour and goes to set out tea - or whatever meal it is in the Mainframe's day cycle.

He can feel the Doctor’s eyes on him sometimes over the course of the meal, questioning, wondering at his easy acquiescence. The week past has been anything but easy, and Jack with it; the madness that took him at seeing the Doctor collapsed on the ground never quite left, soaking in until his teeth, his tendons, his _bones,_ buzzed with anxiety. He has paced and argued and snapped like a cornered wolf, and his alcohol consumption has been creeping up alarmingly. But in this simple service Jack finds peace, finally. He fades into the background, refilling drinks, carrying dishes, sitting quietly; taking care of things. Taking care of the Doctor. It’s where he wants to be. The Doctor gives orders and he takes them, and all the silences and the words said in frustration or anger cannot take away his place at the Doctor's side.

“Jack,” the Doctor calls, and Jack sets down the empty pot, covers the leftover bread, and goes to him. The Mother Superious has gone. Jack kneels beside the Doctor's chair and looks up at him. Brow furrowed, the Doctor considers him; his fingers brush Jack’s hair, come to settle at the side of his face. “What is this, Jack? I didn’t intend you should play the help.”

“I wanted to,” Jack says, leaning slightly into his hand.

“Why?”

How to explain, that the Doctor won’t immediately reject? “Sometimes it’s nice to have… a place. A role. It’s another kind of submission. I want to do for you, Doctor. Please let me.”

The Doctor’s hand slips down to rest below his ear, tilts his head up; those beloved eyes search his face silently. “Neglecting you, again?”

“No. If you don’t want me to, I won’t.” Now that he has found his place again, even if the Doctor won't accept overt service Jack can satisfy himself with small things.

“But it would make you happy.”

“Yes.”

“My Jack.” The Doctor bends down to kiss his forehead, and Jack closes his eyes, suffused with an expansive warmth. “Do, then. All the happiness I can give you, I will.” He tugs gently and Jack lays his head down in his lap, sighing in contentment as the Doctor strokes his hair. “Will you finish what you want to finish, and then come back to me?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jack agrees, and presses a kiss to his lover’s thigh, and goes to finish the washing up.

When Jack returns to the Doctor, he has moved to his workbench and is examining a jointed toy horse under a loupe. “I'm trying to make it move realistically,” he explains as Jack sets his hands on his shoulders, caresses the nape of his neck with his thumbs. “Horses are quite marvelous, really -” He trails off as Jack slides fingers up into his hair, pressing lightly; he spreads his fingers so that he cradles the whole of the Doctor's head in warmth. “Nguh,” he says, or something like, and swallows, and Jack chuckles and does it again. This time the Doctor whimpers as Jack's fingers slide past his ears. Jack tilts his head back gently, gently, and the Doctor opens his eyes, gaze soft and unfocused. “Jack,” he whispers, head laying heavy and trusting in Jack's palms.

Throat tight, Jack smiles down at him but doesn't answer; he can't. This moment, he would keep this moment forever if he could, just this. But forever is too much to ask from any moment, so reluctantly he lets it pass, commending it to the lesser eternity of his memory. Carefully setting the Doctor's neck straight, he steps to the side. “Will you come to bed? I put the hot water bottle in to warm it up.”

“I - oh. Well, I suppose.” The Doctor smiles at him brightly. “You're very persuasive.” Settling an arm about his waist as he stands, Jack snuggles into him, nuzzling the side of his face, leans against him as they pick their way through the workroom. The Doctor can bear to be taken care of more easily if it is clearly doing something for Jack as well, and Jack is not averse to making use of this knowledge. “Needy thing today, aren't you,” the Doctor murmurs; Jack makes a small noise of agreement. He winds his arm about Jack's shoulders, presses Jack's head into his neck. “Take me to bed, then, Captain.”

Jack sighs happily, soaking in the peace of the evening. “Yes, Doctor.”

-+-+-+-

 


	11. Brightest of all

Between the attacks, life continues; the endless cycle of rebuilding, replanting, making new ties among the shifting population of the town. The Doctor can do nothing against a barrage of rocks, and he doesn’t let anyone imagine he can. But he does try to sound reassuring. “They’ve tipped their hand,” he says confidently. “If they try again the Papal Mainframe will be ready.” It is, after all, largely his purpose here to ensure life continues as uninterrupted as possible. There is no getting Gallifrey back, not like this, but the threat of it buys so many lives for the price of his time.

Jack’s carpentry skills come in handy in the rebuilding, but one day he comes home in a terrible crashing racket. “Sorry!” he says to someone outside. “Just - hold on a minute, I think we can put it round back - Doctor!”

The Doctor has nearly reached the front door already, of course; whatever it is is probably either interesting or bad, or like many surprises here, both. “What in blazes are you doing, Captain?”

“There you are! I need somewhere to put this.” Heavy toolbag slung over his shoulder, Jack waves his hand at an odd assortment of wood pieces he and - what's the fellow's name, quiet lad - Olvir, that's it, are carrying in a sort of canvas sling. Neither interesting nor bad, for a change. “Just for a bit. Olvir's got a new apprentice, needs the space.”

“New apprentice, what'd he do with -” Jack is glaring fiercely at him. The Doctor cuts himself off; he was probably about to say something insensitive, somehow.

“I thought the shed round back. Is that alright?”

Should be, but on the other hand… “I'd better come with you. There was a clockwork badger a while back -”

"A _badger_ now!"

“They do get tetchy!” He coaxes the badger out with some spare wire and nuts made up into little beetles, and then isn't sure what to do with it. When Jack comes back out from arranging his bits and bobs, the Doctor is sat fairly comfortably on the moss against the tower, letting the badger trundle around, prodding his pockets for more treats. Jack pauses, arrested look on his face, before breaking into a bemused smile. “Making friends?”

“Don't be daft. It's a clockwork automaton, not a person.” Holding his hand up peremptorily, the Doctor gestures for help up. After another quizzical look, Jack obliges. “I'll put it back in the shed, I suppose. It won't hurt your wood.”

Shrugging agreement, Jack says, “I'll make a bit of a workshop, one of these days. It wasn't needing space so much as… he just didn't want to see me, I think, or my things.” Misinterpreting the Doctor's look, he adds, “He doesn't _blame_ us.”

“For _what?_ ” The Doctor shuts the shed somewhat more forcefully than necessary and stomps back into the tower. “You're being cryptic.”

“I hadn't meant to be. He has a new apprentice because his old apprentice was his nephew Alan. Maeve and Rikard's boy?” The Doctor makes an impatient noise to prompt him to get to the point and Jack sighs. “They all died when the Daleks attacked last year.”

“Oh.” That… was a sharper point than he had been expecting. “It all runs together, after a while,” he admits quietly, and feels the deep stillness of his favourite Fact come up behind him, enclose him, pull him in.

“I know,” Jack says, and holds him tight as time flows by around them.

Jack gives up carpentry - temporarily, he assures the Doctor - only to take up a succession of other professions one after another, a perpetual apprentice. He seems happy, which is most of what the Doctor cares about; and he keeps busy and out of the house every day, which is the rest. Having his Captain in residence again is a delight, but there is only so much of the man anyone should be expected to deal with. Spread his boundless enthusiasm out amongst the townfolk, it will do everyone good. Besides, Barnable is about as well, and he oughtn’t be expected to deal with _two_ enthusiastic people at once, ought he?

He used to lead enthusiastic people about by the nose. But he hasn’t anywhere to lead them, anymore, and Barnable seems content to listen to him natter on whilst they tinker and work on designing what small improvements the town’s limited resources will allow. And fixing things, there’s always fixing things. Toys are fun. Barns are less so. Regretting his earlier impulsivity, the Doctor trudges along with Barnable out to his family’s farm one cold, clear morning.

“He’s just not sure who else to ask, anymore,” Barnable says apologetically, already well aware of the Doctor’s feelings on the matter. “Because it doesn’t quite match up, does it, if you go in through the main door or the hayloft.”

“Or a hole in the side,” the Doctor says, resignedly. Fixing a barn. Why did he ever get involved in fixing a barn? The TARDIS never gets holes in the side. Almost never. Rarely.

“Belike,” Barnable agrees. “Didn’t want to get lost.”

“I could put it back the way it was, if you want?” the Doctor ventures. “Probably. Well. To a first approximation, and always assuming you didn’t want the things _in_ it.” For some reason Jack is lurking around at the edge of the trees. It takes the Doctor a moment to catch his eye, but when he does Jack flashes a quick half smile and trots out to join them.

“Quite alright,” Barnable is saying. “Vessa likes it; she’d just ask you to put it back when she’s in charge. Might as well leave it.” His smile brightens measurably upon spotting Jack. “Good morning, Captain. We’re off to fix a dimensionally transcendental barn.”

Smiling back, Jack winds an arm around the Doctor’s waist and pulls him close. “Good morning, Barney. Good morning, Doctor. Where in the world did you get a dimensionally transcendental barn?”

“I may have been a bit bored one day,” the Doctor says, wondering why he doesn’t get a smile from anyone. Why Barnable gets _his_ smile. Eyeing Jack suspiciously, the Doctor finds he is watching Barnable fondly as he starts along the road again; and _not_ , as he half expected, watching his backside. Well, not exclusively. He leans against his Captain, stealing his attention back; Jack smiles at him as if it had never lapsed and brushes a quick kiss against his cheek.

“That’s probably the explanation for anything that needs explaining, around here,” he says, and starts off, apparently having joined their little party.

“ _Jack_ ,” the Doctor complains as he is dragged along awkwardly. “I can’t walk with you stuck to me.” Jack laughs and disengages, but keeps hold of his hand.

-+-+-

It's not a bad way to spend the time, being the town Jack-of-all-trades. He tried that out on Barnable and got a laugh; he tried it on the Doctor and got that _are you sure that's a joke_ expression he so loves. A winner on both fronts.

Most of the larger industry of Christmas takes place outside the town, forestry and charcoal-burning, brick making and the sawmill, but as much as he likes a good walk Jack would rather keep close when an attack might come any day. There is a small tannery, but the Doctor won't kiss him when he comes home with the smell of it in his clothes, so he gives up on that. He tries the bakery, the laundry, the chandlery - none of which hold his interest particularly - making friends and bringing home interesting bits of information it mostly turns out the Doctor already knew.

He tries the weaving hall next, and finds Barnable.

“Barney! What are you doing here?” he says in surprise; he grins as Barnable favours him with a disgruntled look from his seat at a loom. His hands flash with practiced skill across his work, feet pressing levers as he continues another few rows before setting the shuttle down and turning to look at Jack.

“Clearly I'm building a bridge, Captain.”

After a cautious glance at the large electric looms, Jack considers Barnable’s side of the room with more interest. He’s done textiles before. Feeling rather proud of himself, he offers, “I can knit.”

The corners of the boy’s eyes crinkle up as he laughs at Jack. “Anyone can knit. _Everyone_ can knit.”

“The vast majority of people I’ve met don’t even know what knitting is,” Jack points out wryly; in the silence afterward he suspects they are both trying not to feel defensive. Shrugging the topic away, he wanders across the room to admire Barnable’s work and finds himself more sincere in his admiration than he had expected. “I’m not sure about this bridge. It’s far too beautiful to walk on,” he says, reaching out to touch without thinking then jerking his hand back and looking to Barnable for permission, instead.

He nods, expression unreadable. “Lucky it's not for walking on, then.”

Whatever it is, it's quite large, and soft, and thick; and very, very blue. Every sort of blue, colours he is certain Barnable has never seen but in a dye pot because at first Jack sees only skies. Cloudy skies and clear, starry midnight blue or the deep cerulean at the edge of evening, the hazy azure of the kind of summer day no one on this planet but he and the Doctor have ever seen. As he stares, mesmerised, tracing a color here and there with careful fingertips, he begins to see an order to it, the shocks of white and yellow taking on a familiar pattern, a boxy outline forming in the riot of blue. Taking a step back, Jack tries to deduce the whole from the little he can see.

“Yes, it is,” Barnable says before he can ask. “Please don't tell him. I didn't expect you to just wander in.”

“I won't,” Jack says, not bothering to dampen the awe on his face as he turns. “It's magnificent, Barney.”

Barnable looks away, a hint of pink in his cheeks. “It's not done yet. Might be years, at this rate; I’ve been so busy lately.” Come to think of it, he hasn’t been around as much lately; a new baby at the farm, Jack thinks.

“Coincidentally,” he points out, pleased to say so, “time is the very thing the Doctor has dedicated himself to providing you.” And what a return on that investment, this world he sustains around himself. Time is something Jack has a great deal of as well; he decides he will have time for weaving later, rather than compromise Barnable’s ability to hide away in his art. He is the sort of person who needs to hide away, sometimes.

“Barney says everyone can knit,” Jack informs the Doctor, when he gets home in the evening. The Doctor peers up at him quizzically over his current project.

“Well, yes.”

“I suppose you can knit as well.”

Scowling, the Doctor says, “Of course I can knit,” as if Jack had impugned his ability to do arithmetic.

Jack holds up his hands in concession and laughs. “New man on the planet, here, sorry!”

“So you are. I forget sometimes.” Scowl replaced by a wistful smile that makes Jack want to carry him off to bed on the spot and cheer him up, the Doctor reaches for his hand; Jack gives it gladly. “Seems you’ve always been here, sometimes.”

“I should have been. But I’m here now, I’ll -” But he isn’t to make promises, isn’t to speak of _always_. He has been trying not to, so as not to give the Doctor any excuses to lie; he would rather leave the future to the future than not be able to trust what the Doctor _does_ say. Instead he raises the Doctor’s hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it, tucks it close over his heart. “I’m here now,” he says again. It will have to do.

And then there are the days Barnable isn’t hiding away at all, but stretched out asleep on the sofa by the fire, face lined with pain, shifting restlessly. Those evenings are very quiet; Jack tucks an extra blanket around him, and leaves a glass of water, and goes to bed early with the Doctor to talk or read or darn socks as he listens. It is on one of those nights that Jack asks, in absent curiosity, “Why did you stay, all those years?”

“Because the TARDIS was gone,” the Doctor replies, and winces. “That's not what I meant to say,” he admits, pressing his face to Jack's chest; Jack wonders how often he simply doesn’t admit it. His hand creeps up under Jack's shirt, ticklishly restless, but Jack just waits. “I thought it was because it was the right thing to do. But there were days I would have left, if I could have. More than I care to remember.”

Not sure whether more truth will help or hurt, Jack says quietly, “And after she came back? Why did you stay then?”

Judging by the long pause, the Doctor is not sure either; but finally he opens his mouth to find out. “For Barnable,” he says; his hand slows to a calmer motion, less ticklish. “For Barnable,” he says again, sounding satisfied. “He was waiting there for me. Clara wanted to stay but I couldn’t let her, and Tasha was angry with me and told me to go, but Barnable was there waiting for me and I couldn't bear to let him down.” He pauses, then adds quietly, “I still can't.”

“You won’t,” Jack says confidently. “He loves you, Doctor.” Capturing the Doctor's hand, still moving distractingly under his shirt, Jack moves it down a little. “Do more good there, if you need something to do,” he suggests. The Doctor laughs and Jack groans as his movements turn teasingly random; but he did ask for it.

-+-+-

“Earth is… that way.” Sighting along his outstretched arm, the Doctor closes one eye thoughtfully. He adjusts his aim slightly to the left. “That way.”

Barnable leans close, attempting to sight along his arm as well. He had wanted to know, but despite the nearly-perpetual night astronomy has fallen out of favour here since the siege began. The field the Papal Mainframe maintains around Trenzalore obscures all but the brightest stars. “Still don't see anything,” he says sadly. “But it's good to know it's there. What about your home, Doctor?”

“It's here, Barnable,” the Doctor says gently. It’s true in more ways than one. “This is home. Came back, didn't I? I'm not leaving.” He was there the day the TARDIS returned, after all, and the Doctor suspects he has never quite stopped worrying about it. “And before this, Earth was the most home I had.”

“But -” Barnable looks around, catches sight of Jack, who has been standing silently in the doorway behind them, and stops. Probably shaking his head. Always protecting him, but what good are secrets to him now -? The Doctor almost begins to tell Barnable about Gallifrey out of simple spite, but the boy speaks too soon. “What about you, Captain? Or are you from Earth?”

“I lived there for quite a while. But no, not originally. Colony world, like this - well, nothing at all like this, really.” Jack chuckles. “More sun than you'd know what to do with. Sand, and ocean, and never snow. Almost never rain. And wind, always wind where I was born.” He steps up to the edge of the roof with them, just brushing the Doctor's left shoulder, raises his hand to point. “That's Rigel, right?” The Doctor nods. “Always good for a reference, in this neighborhood. Erm. Canopus, or Achernar?”

“Hm.” The Doctor steps behind him, chin on his shoulder and shamelessly stealing his body heat, and nudges his arm another forty degrees around to the right to a dim spark. He doesn't need to see the stars to know where they are; they light his way even here, all the remembered brightness of the universe. And his sun, his polestar, the brightest of all here in his arms. “Achernar. Canopus is in the other hemisphere.”

Leaning into him, Jack turns his head slightly to nuzzle the Doctor's cheek. “Alright. So, probably…” His arm comes to rest pointing toward Barnable’s feet. “Ah. Well, nevermind. You wouldn’t be able to see it anyway.”

After Barnable leaves, back home to his family’s farm, Jack tugs the Doctor down to sit on the bench, arm about his shoulders. “It’s here,” he repeats, an opening more than a question.

“Of course it’s here. All I’ve got, isn’t it. Small, and cold, and dark; but Jack, it’s mine.” And he belongs to Trenzalore, in the end. It is home as much as anything could ever be. “There’s a beauty in silence, in solitude. I wish we could see the stars, but… they’re there. They’re there, and that’s what matters.”

“And Gallifrey?”

Too perceptive by half, his Captain. “It’s there too. Wherever it is.”

“And that’s what matters?”

“That’s what matters.”

-+-+-+-

 


	12. Another day

Like most celebrations in Christmas, the Midsummer party starts at sunrise, just before noon by the clock. As odd as it still seems to Jack to call a day of mostly night _Midsummer_ , and as undifferentiated as it is from other days, the seasonal celebrations are the slow heartbeat of life on this world. The whole town gathers in the square to visit and eat and play and dance, and the Doctor is there in the midst of it all. He is a joy to watch at times like this, when he sheds the burden of silence for just a little while and all that immense love of life shines through again. It is a relief to Jack every time, to find that this circumscribed life has not entirely broken his nature. The children shriek happily at his antics and the adults watch, and clap, and laugh, and remember being children, Jack suspects. He watches from the edge, arms folded, content to stay out of the way. He will always be an outsider, in this.

Looking around, he notices Barnable sitting on a bench at the edge as well, looking pensive. Jack grins, and ducks back into the shadows with a swirl of coattails when his head is turned away, only to reappear at his shoulder. “What are you doing back here, Barney?” he asks, and laughs as the boy jumps. “Budge over.”

“Have a care, Captain,” Barnable says after a surprisingly credible glare - usually his attempts just make Jack want to tell him how adorable he is. “Vessa will tell you, I bite when I'm startled.”

“The Doctor will tell you, I like biting,” Jack returns without missing a beat, and smirks at the blush creeping up Barnable's face. He's not a boy anymore, really; twenty three, twenty four? And still so easy to fluster. “You don’t believe me.”

“Oh, no, I believe you.” With an embarrassed laugh, Barnable looks away as the Doctor catches his attention again. It isn’t as though Jack goes to any trouble to hide the marks, admittedly. “You're so casual about him.”

“Well, sure,” Jack says, surprised. “What's wrong, Barney?” There's nothing about this that should be new to him, surely.

“We think of him like this,” Barnable says, waving his hand. “The storyteller, the teacher. But we also grow up knowing he's so much more. I tell the kids bedtimes stories about him, you know.” His sister's children, that would be. “The stories in the book, and others.”

Jack blinks. “There's a book?”

“Of course there's a book, what -” They stare at each other for a moment, equally baffled, until Barnable covers his mouth and laughs. “Sorry.” After an encouraging noise from Jack and a sidelong glance back, he says, “That face. All scrunched up on one side.” He doesn't go so far as to say he _likes_ it, but he's blushing again and Jack preens happily. Anything that produces that charming laugh is fine by him. “But of course there's a book, Captain, he's not shy telling you if you've got it wrong. Some of the stories in it are ones he tells from before, but he's been here three hundred years; most of them are about him here. The Doctor and the Stone Angels. The Doctor and the Day of Light. The New Sheriff. The Winter Without Snow.” He glances at Jack again, shyly. “I'm writing some new ones. The Doctor and the Wooden Robot.” After a pause, he says quietly, “The Man Who Fell From the Sky.”

He's to become a fairy tale again, then. Suddenly desperate not to be, at least to one person, at least to _this_ person, Jack protests, “I'm not story material, Barney. I'm just me.”

Barnable eyes him cautiously. “This is where I'm having problems, yes. The story, versus the real person. I grew up with one idea of him; now, between being around so much and watching you two together, I've another idea entirely. I can't seem to make it all fit together. And no one here… knows what he’s like, when he’s at home.”

Not just the Doctor he is having difficulty reconciling, Jack suspects, and Barnable is the only person who really crosses between the worlds of the town and the tower. “He's all those things and more, Barney. The only box he’s ever fit in is the TARDIS, and she’s - she’s something else. We’ll show you someday, maybe. I’ve seen a lot of things with him, hell, I’ve been to the end of the universe with him, but I’m still only human. He’s seen things, done things, I can’t imagine and couldn’t possibly understand. Don’t try to make it fit together. Let him be more.”

Barnable sits silently for a time, and Jack watches his lover lead the children in the square in a mad dance, swirling around him, sweeping in the adults at each turn as well.

“He’s seemed much happier since you came,” Barnable ventures.

“Has he? Good. He’s been much happier since you started coming around, as well.”

“Has he?” Barnable echoes, startled. “Oh.”

Jack nods. “And so have I.” Another quiet _oh_ from Barnable, but although Jack waits he doesn’t say anything more. “He says he thinks of me as some sort of floating tree island, trailing roots everywhere I go, accreting life.” He holds out his hands and wriggles his fingers; as he intended, this provokes a laugh. “I do put down roots easily, I suppose. Join a community, or make one. But it’s a lonely life, outliving everyone you meet, and before I came… I think he had got tired of trying. He thinks of himself as rootless, a perpetual outsider, always moving on.”

With a confused sort of laugh, Barnable says, “But - no, he’s -”

“He’s the centre of your world, here,” Jack says, nodding. “It’s hard to imagine, I think, for you, but he’s been more alone than I can easily explain. I don’t fix that for him, but I’m a sort of anchor, easy for him to hold on to, because of what I am. Because I won’t fade away. So he thinks it’s me making connections here; he thinks I brought _you_ to him, but he had already acquired you before I arrived, hadn’t he.” It’s not really a question, and Barnable doesn’t bother answering; just smiles, as children laugh and the Doctor calls for a break. “He’ll ask you why, someday. He always does.”

“Why… what?”

“Why you stayed. Lots of people love him, Barney, everywhere he goes, but some of us would die before leaving him and he never understands. It’s alright. Let it be more, yeah?” When Jack glances again at Barnable he finds grey eyes watching him keenly, instead of the blush he had half expected. “What?”

“Did you?”

What kind of question is that? “Did I, _what?_ ”

“Did you die before leaving him.”

Jack stares at him in consternation. “How the hell do you two manage to turn conversations around on me like that? I was trying to be _helpful_ -” If in a somewhat selfish way. One golden brow quirks up, and Jack folds his arms across his chest and sighs. “Yes, I did. And I’ll keep doing so. Alright? No virtue accrues when there’s no risk of it sticking.” He _had_ expected it to the first time, of course. And the Doctor had been more willing to let him, back then.

“If you say so, Captain. I’m sure it’s all dreadfully boring and not a good story at all.” He’s smiling again though, so that’s alright.

“I’ll give you _stories_ ,” Jack grumbles halfheartedly. The activity in the square is beginning to look more orderly again. “This man who fell from the sky, then - is he handsome?”

“Quite distractingly so,” Barnable agrees, looking determinedly away as that blush starts to reappear. “But I'm writing a children's story, not a romance.”

Jack laughs softly and leans against him, just a little. “There's always time for more stories, Barney.” Standing as the music starts up again, he offers Barnable his hand. “Won’t you dance with me?”

-+-+-

“Every year,” the Doctor mutters as he slams the door behind him - which is a mistake, because he catches his cane on the wall trying to yank it out of the way, and then overcorrects, and then - “Every year!” he yells, frustrated. “It’s not my birthday!”

Jack is meant to say something sarcastic or clever or snarky here so they can have an argument and then the Doctor will feel better, but he doesn’t, even though he’s right there, he certainly _heard_ \- The Doctor looks up once he has himself on an even keel again to find that Jack’s reticence is because he is busy throwing a reassuring arm around the shoulders of a very nervous looking Barnable.

“It’s not my birthday,” the Doctor says, less enthusiastically. He had really been hoping for an argument, not an audience.

“I know,” Jack says, much too conciliatorily. “Catch you by surprise again?”

That’s better. “It’s just another day on the calendar. Linear progressions of days don’t catch me by _surprise_. Most boring sort of days there are. Have a day. Have another day.”

“And yet,” Jack says, letting go of Barnable and giving him a gentle shove toward the sofa, “July 13 seems very surprising to you. Despite following July 12 every year.”

Stomping very purposefully, the Doctor makes his way to the kitchen and frowns fiercely at the lack of tea. “There’s nothing to celebrate about July 13. It’s not my birthday. It’s not a good day. It’s an annoying day and it’s full of people yelling at me and if I could remember whose idea it was to call it my birthday I would - I would.” He runs down, unable to think of a suitable threat to someone long dead when he doesn't travel anymore.

“Mm,” Jack says, as he makes the tea.

“Argue more,” the Doctor orders.

“You’re scaring Barney.”

The Doctor wilts at the soft voice from the other room. “I can go. Come back… another day.”

“No,” he says at the same time as Jack, who nods him toward the sofa as well. He sits down, leaving a little space between himself and the boy wedged in the corner, hugging a large packet of _something_ to his chest. “I’m sorry, Barnable. I’m not angry at you. I’m not really angry at all. Just… I don’t like it.”

“It’s the day you came here.”

Sighing, the Doctor rolls his cane between his hands. “It is. And it seems very important to everyone, for some reason. I don’t yell about it until I get home, you know. But if it’s the day I came here, it’s also the day I lost the TARDIS. The day I lost Clara.” He hesitates, unsure whether he ought to burden Barnable any further. Jack comes with the tea and sits silently beside him, so he goes on. “The day I lost the stars. And then what should I hope for, when it seemed I should never go back?” The day all roads turned toward darkness. “It’s not a day I remember with fondness.”

Barnable is staring at him with a terrible look of betrayal on his face, and the Doctor’s hearts turn to iron and fall to his feet before he realises the look is directed at _Jack_ , not himself. Why at Jack? “You _said_ -” the boy starts, quiet anguish in his voice.

“I think it is entirely appropriate,” Jack replies solemnly.

Barnable glares at him for another moment, then looks warily at the Doctor, who at this point would do quite a lot to fix this - if he had any idea what was going on. “I made this for you,” Barnable says, still holding the packet close. “It’s not - it’s not _for your birthday_ or anything like that, but I thought, since it was a happy sort of day… Only it’s not. But the Captain said it was a good idea!”

Jack chuckles, and Barnable glares at him again. “Unhappy days need all the help they can get. Don’t you think? Go on, Barney.”

After a final hesitation, he pushes it over to the Doctor. Somewhat at a loss, the Doctor considers the heavy packet. “Thank you, Barnable.”

“Open it,” Jack suggests, rolling his eyes.

“Do shut up,” he suggests back, and Jack smiles and mimes zipping his lips. Carefully untying the string holding it closed, the Doctor folds back the wrapping and is inundated in blue. “What -?” Every shade of blue there is, every bright sky he has left behind, every blue sea, every fading edge of atmosphere, every reflection of stellar glory, every bright blue door he has ever raced through with life nipping at his heels, brought to memory in a clarity too intense for words. He finds himself picking out single threads in overwhelmed self-defence, one memory at a time; the smell of apple grass, the gleam of crystal, a beach so long ago, the cover of a book he can never see the inside of. Little by little he unfolds the fabric until he is draped in it.

Jack is laughing at him. No matter; now he’s looked up he has eyes only for Barnable, who is watching him silently, arms folded tight around himself, joy in his rain-dark eyes.

“It’s magnificent,” the Doctor says, utterly sincere; he ignores Jack’s exclamation of _that’s what I said!_ “Thank you. What is it?”

Barnable grins. “Bedspread. For that enormous bed.”

“He’s been working on it for, what, three years? Four?” Jack offers, unable to shut up for long. On the other hand, if he has been in on the secret for that long, it’s a wonder it has stayed a secret at all. He grabs it from the Doctor’s hands despite his squawk of protest and dashes to the bedroom. “Come on! You have to see the whole thing.”

By the time the Doctor makes it there he has it laid out across the bed in all its glory and the larger pattern becomes clear; his very own TARDIS, the architect of all those memories, the shuttle weaving the thread of his life into something greater than himself, all the light he's left behind streaming from her windows into worlds of blue. Hand over his mouth, he stares at it silently, fumbles to catch Barnable against his side in a grateful embrace. Jack is silent again, watching them from across the bed with an odd smile on his face.

“Three years?” Barnable nods against his shoulder. “The bluest blue there ever was,” he whispers, and Barnable’s arm draws tight about his waist, just for a moment. “Captain, I’m afraid you can’t sleep here anymore,” the Doctor announces sadly.

Jack stares at him in betrayed confusion. “What? Why?”

“You’ll get it messy.”

“I will not!” Jack denies heatedly, as Barnable laughs. “I’m house trained!”

-+-+-+-

 


	13. Roots

Jack knows, to the moment, when he realised Barnable was no longer any sort of visitor but part of the household. In hindsight it seems strange that it should have taken so long, nearly a decade of him being about, but then some people take change slow; he has been working up to it for years. Jack had been gone a day, seven miles south to the next town - which, somewhat to Jack’s disappointment, is _not_ called Boxing Day, but Wrenshall although the planet has no true wrens - to bring back stone for rebuilding after the latest attack. Christmas has forests and mud, and charcoal pits and brick ovens, and all the wood they might need; Wrenshall, not being attacked on the regular, has most everything else.

He had come in, dirty and tired and hoping for leftovers from supper, to find instead the Doctor and Barnable asleep on the old sofa before the fire, Barnable slouched in the corner with his favourite blanket, the Doctor pillowed on his chest, encircled in his arms, making that adorable snuffling noise with each slow breath.

It doesn't occur to Jack to wake them. Nothing at all occurs to him at first, in fact; too busy drinking it in like - like home, after days on the road. Like nothing but itself. Forgetting his hopes for food, he sits quietly in the chair opposite and simply watches, doing his best to sear the moment into his mind that he might hold it close against the long years ahead of him. If time has taught him anything at all, it is to appreciate these moments when they come, for they may not come again.

But he finds himself hoping desperately that this one will.

Eventually Barnable wakes, and blinks, and then freezes, staring wide-eyed and guilty at Jack. “Captain,” he whispers, and swallows. “Sorry.”

“I don’t see anything here that looks like it needs apologising for,” Jack replies, equally quietly.

“Erm.” Barnable pauses, then continues hesitantly. “I’m given to understand coming home to find your lover in someone else’s arms… can cause problems?”

It is such an adorably _Barnable_ thing to say, Jack can't help laughing. “I suppose there are quite a lot of circumstances in which that might be true. Most of those circumstances don't involve _me_ playing the part of the jealous lover, though. And none of them look like this.” He waves his finger around, inclusively. “I could come home to _this_ every night. I would _love_ to come home to this every night.”

Barnable’s eyes go wide, and as he searches for a response Jack’s heart falls and he curses his mouth silently. Temporary insanity, to have sprung that on a man who hates surprises. He is about to attempt to backtrack when Barnable speaks. “He didn’t sleep well last night,” he says, eyes bright with reflected light, apparently attempting the least challenging point first. His arms around the Doctor don’t move, which is a small relief. “Because you were gone.”

“I didn’t mean _exactly_ this. And I’m not planning to go away more to achieve it. I meant you, being here. And I should point out that finding one’s lover in someone else’s arms is usually metaphorical, and usually involves more activity and less clothing.” Jack pauses as Barnable’s face slowly reddens, and adds helpfully, “On good days I get a threesome out of it.”

With a truly delightful scandalised laugh, Barnable looks away. “I’m really not… I’m not interested in, in that. Sex. I’m not interested. With anyone.”

It's a welcome confirmation; much better than the idea that Captain Jack Harkness had completely lost his touch, which is the other possibility he had begun considering. “I’d kinda figured that, yeah,” Jack says, gently. “I’m not propositioning you - or not for sex, anyway. Or - I mean, this is me, I'm not _against_ the idea. But I’ve fallen for people who don’t want sex before. It doesn’t bother me. What do you think I keep him around for.” He flicks his fingers toward the Doctor, grinning. “I can’t promise to understand, exactly, although I suspect the Doctor will, but I promise whatever you want is fine. I would love if you were… a more permanent part of our lives. If you were here. Any way you like.” He hasn't said _no_ yet; that has to be a good sign. “Think about it? Please?”

Barnable considers him silently over the Doctor's head, then says, as if testing the water, “The walk is no trouble.”

As if Jack might be asking to make Barnable's life easier. Jack smiles wryly; it will make his life harder, if anything. “It's nothing to do with the _walk_ , Barney, I just want you to stay. Alright? You belong here. It's better with you.”

“But… the Doctor?” Which, while yes, an important question, seems to Jack to be answered in its entirety by the Time Lord's current position. The man may have no concept of personal space but he hardly _cuddles_ casually.

“If I were still the traveling sort,” the Doctor says quietly, not so asleep after all, “I'd have asked you along years ago.”

“Ah,” Barnable says, and falls silent. Jack sits back, willing to wait; entirely willing to continue to sit and watch the tableau before him, thoughtful Barnable with his arms still tight around the Doctor, who hasn’t tried to move at all yet. He doesn’t snuggle in as he would if it were Jack’s chest he were draped on, but still he has contrived to warm himself on human heat, put that single heartbeat under his ear. His eyes glint, half closed, and Jack smiles at him in reflected happiness.

He had come home and found home changed into something better; it is moments like that that build a life.

-+-+-

The next day Jack begins clearing out one of the two first floor rooms for Barnable, so as to be ready when he makes up his mind. There is a second floor as well, but it is just as bad; in three hundred years the Doctor has cluttered up the place so comprehensively the task resembles an archaeological dig more closely than house cleaning. He watches, amused, as Jack attempts to make inroads on the chaos.

“What _is_ this, Doctor?” Jack asks, baffled expression on his face as he tries to untangle a length of rope from an assortment of wood slats and metal bits that may have once been spoons and something that is almost certainly not a television aerial.

“If you think I remember every questionable idea I’ve had in three hundred years you are going to be very disappointed, Captain. But keep working on that rope, I can think of some new uses for it.” Stepping up behind him, the Doctor slides his hand down through Jack’s hair, around his neck, to rest lightly under his chin and tilt his head up. His hands lose purpose and then movement altogether as the Doctor’s hand progresses, much to the Doctor’s amusement.

“Erm,” Jack says, and blinks, eyes gone dark. He leans back against the Doctor's legs, sharing his heat. “Yeah?”

“If you’re good.”

Jack grins and nuzzles against him suggestively. “Good at what?”

“Cleaning,” the Doctor suggests back, and laughs at the exaggerated sigh of disappointment. “Go on. It was your idea, after all.” He does help, though; he wants Barnable here nearly as much as Jack does, if for slightly different reasons. Trust his Captain to go around falling in love with people. He might be jealous, if he could think what to be jealous about; it all seems rather satisfactory as he gets to keep both of them. But mostly, he isn’t about to leave before Jack realises -

“I think we've actually got more than we started with,” Jack says with a despondent sigh. “Doctor, I don't see how -” Here it comes. Looking around suspiciously, he says, in a very different tone of voice, “I don't see how this can all fit upstairs. That's cheating, Doctor.”

“You might want to try the other room,” the Doctor agrees, laughing at the put-upon expression on his lover's face as he realises the Doctor intentionally let him waste a day on a dimensionally transcendental rabbit hole. Maybe more of a warren.

“You might have _mentioned_.”

“But, Jack, you were being so _good_.”

-+-+-

Despite the Doctor's entirely unhelpful help, Jack does eventually succeed in clearing out the second room for Barnable. _He_ is helpful, at least. Too helpful, Jack begins to think, after a few days of drifting about the house finding all his chores already done.

Catching him in a rare moment of stillness, Jack joins Barnable at the kitchen table as he sips his tea. Subtle? Humorous? How does one approach a Barnable on domestic issues? “You know we didn't ask you here to be the help. Don't you?”

Well, he's always been rubbish at subtle.

Barnable just looks at him quizzically. “I don't understand.”

“You've been doing all my chores, Barney.” No, that wasn't right either, he hadn't meant to sound _possessive_.

“It's no more than I do at home. Than I did, at the farm,” he corrects himself, self-consciously. Then his lips curve up into that beautiful smile of his. “Are you saying _you're_ meant to be the help, Captain?”

“ _Yes._ Erm.” Jack sighs. Never have these conversations with people who have lived in a truth field all their lives; they _weasel_. He should know that by now, it's only every single person in the blasted town. “I'm meant to be _his_ help, anyway,” he admits.

Barnable frowns, and sets his tea down. “I hope I'm not preventing that? I had meant to leave you more time for… whatever. Whatever you'd like to do. Be a help to you both. Have to make up for the days I'm no use at all.”

“ _What?_ No, you don't. You have migraines, love, you don't _make up_ for them, you survive them. And let us do what we can to help.” Which is little enough.

“Yes,” Barnable says firmly, “I do. When I said pulling my weight was a condition of living here, I wasn't joking.”

“Barney -” Jack sighs, rubs his face in frustration. “You weigh less than either of us,” he tries.

With an amused snort, Barnable says, “True enough. And you keep my family and friends alive. I can keep a house, more or less. I'm not a pet, Captain.”

“Ah.” Lost that argument fair and square, then. At twenty-five he has had nearly a decade of practice arguing with the Doctor; Jack probably had no chance from the beginning. He sighs. No chance of anything, against these two. “What I get for encouraging you. Outnumbered in my own home, now.”

“You love it,” Barnable says, a shy smile turning up the corners of his mouth again.

“You have _definitely_ been spending too much time around the Doctor.” Laying his hand open on the table, Jack waits until Barnable sets his hand in it and smiles back at him. “I really do, though.”

It has been a long time since Jack set up house with someone new. He doesn't count the Doctor; despite the long absences they seem to fall back into orbit around each other with very little difficulty, almost always. But Barnable is something altogether new, even if he has been around rather more than not for years. Gradually they settle into a comfortable sharing of the household chores; Jack won't give up any of his specifically Doctor-care duties, but he finds himself being taken care of in turn, occasionally. Once he gets over the surprise it becomes a comfort he misses on days Barnable is in bed. On those days he comforts himself by taking care of Barnable and the Doctor both, and as the months go by things seem to balance out.

It would bother the Doctor, Jack suspects, if he noticed the mild jockeying for caretaking opportunities; but he has been spoiled all his life, making his home in a sentient timeship with the capability and desire to provide all he needs. Even after centuries of making do, painfully alone, now that life has returned to a closer semblance of normal it is very easy for him to slip back into habits of a lifetime.

It doesn't occur to him, on a daily basis, to wonder where clean dishes come from, or how the clothes in his wardrobe come to be there, or who puts clean sheets on the bed. He retains the habit of making the bed in the morning, which Jack finds fascinating but doesn't dare comment on, and he clears away the dishes after meals; but then he did in the TARDIS as well. His firewood has always been stocked by someone else, and his food provided. Finding Barnable cooking always seems to surprise him greatly, but never if it's Jack.

He is, Jack supposes, quite used to his household changing composition unexpectedly, even if he is out of practice in the centuries spent here. Has he really had no close associates? Jack has found no signs of them, in any case, and he has looked; all the clutter is distinctly Doctor-ish. Naturally inquisitive, Jack calls it. The Doctor called him a nosy poke and a meddling busybody and scowled fiercely when he caught Jack at it, early on, but didn't tell him to stop. So he didn't, and the grumpiness has faded over the years. More or less.

-+-+-

“The Doctor tells a lot of stories,” Barnable says. In pain but not so much he will agree to be put to sleep yet, he is tucked into the corner of the sofa sipping the tea Jack made him, looking small and fragile. He has his mother's unimposing height with none of her solidity; genetics plays less of a role, Jack suspects, than the headaches so bad he loses any food he tries to eat. But he never seems fragile when he is feeling well. “About monsters and space battles, worlds where the sun shines all the time and suns that eat worlds. About things he's done and people he's met. A girl called Amelia Pond, who he says is the realest fairy tale there ever was, and a boy named Rory who loved her for two thousand years. About the Impossible Girl - and we _saw_ her, she's real - and Professor River Song. He says she was a superhero and she married him.”

Jack can't hold back a quiet laugh at that one. “That sounds accurate.” It has been a long time since he saw River, but not so long as it's been for the Doctor. Even if it had, though, Jack can't imagine referring to her in the past tense. She's bound to turn up again.

“And,” Barnable continues, watching him intently, “he says there is a man who lives with Time, who carries it inside him like a never-dying fire, who holds the universe together. The loneliest man he knows. It's you, isn't it. You're the Immortal Wanderer.”

Eyes prickling, Jack swallows past his suddenly tight throat. “I suppose I must be, yes. It's… I'm not so lonely right _now_ , Barney, don't worry about it,” he finds himself saying, in an attempt to soothe away the distress written in eyes and lips that he would give much to make smile. “I’m not wandering _now_.”

Silently Barnable holds out his hand, and Jack shifts closer, interlacing their fingers firmly. At a light tug he shifts closer still; hums happily as he lays his head on Barnable’s shoulder. “Roots,” Barnable suggests; Jack nods. “Me?” Jack nods again. “I’m not… reliable.”

A lifetime of disability leaves its marks. “You’re reliably yourself,” Jack assures him, instead of arguing. “That’s what matters, for this.”

-+-+-+-

 


	14. Burn for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Chapter is NSFW._

“Jack!” the Doctor calls, without much hope of response. Where is the blasted man, he hasn’t been around at all -

“He’s not back yet, Doctor,” Barnable says, poking his head around the corner. “Would you like tea?”

“ _Yes._ ” Scowling, the Doctor demands, “Where is he?”

Barnable shrugs, and offers a hand to help the Doctor up; he hates it from Jack but somehow the gesture coming from Barnable never seems objectionable. “Up the mountains, belike. He likes it up there. He said he’d be home late.”

Sighing, the Doctor follows his young friend to the kitchen. He never seems to lose his temper, never seems rocked off balance by the slap of waves from the inevitable conflicts in this household, and the Doctor certainly wouldn't prefer the house _empty_ again, but - “What are you doing here, Barnable?”

Barnable eyes him with concern. “I live here, Doctor.”

“I _know_ that! I was there!” Despite the mild offense the Doctor can't hold back the bark of laughter. “I've not gone senile on you.”

“Well, then.” With a smile half relief, half confusion, Barnable goes to make the tea. “Erm. Then what did you mean?”

“Why are you…” The Doctor gestures vaguely. “What kind of person chooses this? People used to come away with me all the time, but it was the adventure, mostly. All of time and space. There weren't so many who would have stayed, without that.”

“Well, me, clearly,” Barnable says peaceably. “I'm not exactly standard. The Captain stays.”

“Jack is… a special case. In every way. As you know.”

“I know.” The smile on his face as he turns back to the Doctor with their tea is radiant, and for a moment the Doctor can see the man Jack has fallen in love with instead of the boy he has known since birth.

“Heart as big as the sky, our Captain,” the Doctor says, instead of further questions. “Let him take care of you a bit, Barnable, he needs it.”

“He -” Shaking his head, Barnable cuts himself off. “I know he does,” he says instead, without exactly agreeing. “His bad luck to love the both of us.”

The Doctor's lips twitch. “Just so. Luck has never much favoured him. Although I suspect he enjoys arguing nearly as well.”

Barnable laughs. “I certainly hope so.”

When they have done with tea it somehow turns into supper, the lively conversation moving things along without the Doctor noticing; and then after the washing up the hard chair at his work table holds little appeal. More tea in hand, Barnable smiles as he indicates the sofa and the Doctor, loathe to give up his company now, follows.

They are still sitting there, the Doctor reading, Barnable leant cozily against him and dozing, when Jack comes home, creeping in quietly lest he wake anyone asleep. When he sees them there he stops, seems to hold his breath as he takes it in. The Doctor catches his eye and he breathes again, slowly, savoring, before he comes to sit at the Doctor's feet.

“Captain,” Barnable murmurs, awoken by the Doctor shifting slightly to let Jack lay his head down on his lap. Jack reaches for Barnable's hand, kisses it silently. “You said.”

“Yes,” Jack says, sounding a bit choked. “Just this, bright eyes.”

There is something between them the Doctor is not a part of, but that is as it should be, and true of any pair of them. Certainly Jack doesn't share his love of tinkering as Barnable does, the joy of clever hands and new ideas, losing track of time in pursuit of a better solution; he does seem to have a great love of watching them at it, though. Carding his fingers through his lover's hair, the Doctor lets the silence stretch, everything well enough again with Jack nearby. An odd little family they have here, but no odder than most he has found himself a part of over his life. All gone, now, all past but this, all lost behind the silence the Doctor has found himself party to, here.

He has felt so much more alive since Jack came, but it will only make it all the harder when he leaves, the Doctor expects. Harder to give it all up; harder to stay his lonely path to the end.

-+-+-

“Minor progress,” Tasha says quellingly, as if he were about to leap off the tower in glee.

“Measurable progress!” the Doctor insists. “It's better than minimal progress, which was better than no progress. Look on the bright side, Tash! That's what you get for dressing all dark and spiky; you start thinking a little optimism will ruin your image.”

“Domestic bliss makes you insufferable,” she diagnoses, looking him up and down. There is a suspicious noise from the direction of the stairwell; the Doctor turns his head to see Jack lurking in the shadows, hand clamped tightly over his mouth, eyes laughing merrily.

With all the dignity he can muster, the Doctor replies, “Your complaints are not universal.”

“I suppose not. In any case, We believe we will soon be able to subvert the Dalek nanotech subtly enough that we can resume hostile engagement of Dalek ships without loss of… personnel.” _Life_ would be imprecise, considering everyone infected is technically dead, mind and personality preserved only by means of the nanotech. Almost twenty years later, and finally some hope. “Our control over the situation has broken down there, in the past. A show of force may halt the escalation, at least temporarily.”

“It would be welcome,” the Doctor admits. The town has suffered increasingly frequent damage over the last few years, including completely unacceptable loss of life. “Anything you can do.”

“Be assured we will do our best. Be well, Doctor. Captain.”

Her avatar disappears as Jack moves up behind him. “Good news.”

“Well. It took them long enough. I’d have had it done in half the time. Less.” He tries to lean back against Jack without being too obvious about it.

Chuckling, Jack wraps his arms around him and kisses the back of his neck. “You’d have been very efficiently dead if you’d tried. They did good, admit it. It’s impressive work, if it pans out.”

There is no getting rid of the nanotech; too many of the priests and clerics and choristers on the Papal Mainframe are infected, not to mention the Mother Superious herself. The loss would be catastrophic. It could only be studied, and learned, and hopefully subverted, and considering the delicacy and novelty of the effort, twenty years is probably very impressive. There’s no reason he has to admit it, though. Not when he could stand here and bask in the best of what his life has left to offer, instead.

Trying the idea on for size, the Doctor says, “Domestic bliss.”

“Hm?”

“Not my style,” he decides, distracted by Jack’s wandering hands.

Jack laughs. “Maybe the _domestic_ part. _Bliss_ we can do.” His tongue takes a meandering path up the Doctor’s neck.

Shivering, the Doctor tries to protest. “Jack -”

“Right here,” Jack suggests, breath hot in his ear, voice a quiet rumble against his back.

The Doctor swallows, mouth gone dry. “Absolutely not,” he says, trying to ignore the warm hand cupping the front of his trousers, the hips pressed hard against his backside. “There are children about.”

“I can remember times you didn’t care.” He seems determined to _make_ the Doctor not care; he squeezes lightly and the Doctor moans. “I can be quiet. Can you?”

“It’s cold,” he says, tilting his head back to lay his cheek against his lover’s.

Strong hands turn him around, lay heavy on his hips as Jack nuzzles along the line of his jaw, covers his neck with open-mouthed kisses. His breath rises in clouds about their faces. “I’ll keep you warm,” he promises.

“Yes,” the Doctor sighs, not sure which statement he is agreeing with, but out of objections. Laying his cane aside, he slides his hands beneath Jack’s coat, rocks his hips slowly against Jack’s to find out whether he can, in fact, be quiet; the groan in his ear is heartfelt but certainly inaudible to any potential passers-by below. But what's the fun in giving up after one test? Burrowing his hands under rough jumper and shirt the Doctor seeks out the heat of bare skin to warm his hands on. Jack's breath comes out through his teeth like the whistle of a teapot and the Doctor muffles his own laughter against his lover's mouth. Jack's fingers are working into his trousers but the temperature differential is in his favour and he has no complaints.

Whining quietly, Jack squirms against him delightfully as he runs cold fingers up his spine and back down. “Cold,” he complains, trying to recapture the Doctor’s mouth.

“You’re made of fire, Jack,” the Doctor murmurs against his lover’s neck. “Burn for me.” Jack’s moan is devastating. Tipping his face up, the Doctor gives himself up to the searing heat of Jack’s tongue in his mouth, Jack’s hands on his back holding him close, Jack’s cock hard against his, warm even through layers of fabric. He hardly notices they are moving until cold stone stops his back, startling a gasp from him as Jack opens his trousers and frees his cock. Trying to help earns him a laugh and a length of solid fire pressed against him.

“Don’t help,” Jack insists, as he wraps a hand around both of them, braces his other arm on the column he has the Doctor pressed against. “I love you but your hands are awfully cold. Mine are bad enough.”

“Yours are wonderful,” the Doctor gasps, thrusting insistently. Jack groans and bows his head against the Doctor’s shoulder; between both their coats and Jack's radiating heat the Doctor, at least, is very comfortable. His hands are warmer now, he thinks, but the shudder that shakes Jack as he slips them down the back of his trousers suggests he may have overestimated the improvement. No matter. It’s a good look for his Captain, panting and trembling in his arms; and it was his idea, after all.

Little by little he works his hand lower, slipping fingers between Jack's cheeks, pressing in rhythm with their movements until it's more desperation than rhythm, until Jack tenses, arse and back and neck and hand, until he bites down hard on the Doctor's shoulder to muffle the deep groan as he comes. His hand stops only briefly though, and suddenly there is a great deal more lubrication; fire coiling tight in his groin, the Doctor bites his lip, unable to keep silent as he hurtles toward completion with alarming speed. Jack’s mouth is there to catch his _very quiet_ shriek, but he pulls away to finish catching his breath as soon as the Doctor begins to relax.

Humming tunelessly, the Doctor lays his head back and stares out at the dark sky, pleasantly empty of thought for a moment. Jack watches him contentedly, tucks his cold hand under the Doctor's coat as he licks the fingers of his other hand clean. He offers one to the Doctor.

“Bliss?” Jack asks, eyes half-lidded in pleasure, sliding his finger slowly against the Doctor's tongue.

“Mm,” he agrees, sucking lightly, enjoying the familiar taste of Jack combined with his own less-familiar flavor.

“You look absolutely edible, you know, all flushed and sated like that.”

From the stairwell behind them Barnable's voice floats up. “I know you're up there, and no, I'm not coming up. It's supper soon. Wash your hands.”

“Yes, mum!” Jack calls, rolling his eyes and grinning; the Doctor can feel his cheeks burning. “I think we may have achieved _domestic_ as well.”

As he fixes his trousers the Doctor mutters, “Suppose I may as well give it a try.”

-+-+-+-

 


	15. Check and mate

“You got a direct line to her or something?” Jack yells, trying to be heard over the grinding roar of machinery, the crackle of flames, the awful crashes as people's homes and livelihoods are destroyed. The unceasing toll of the bell ringing out _evacuate_ ; Barnable refused to leave but at least the Doctor convinced him to stay in the tower. “Some help would be really nice right about now!”

“No good till I can get them uncloaked!” the Doctor yells back, without looking up from the amplifier he is cobbling together for his sonic screwdriver.

 _Something smells strange_ , he'd said. _Have you checked the tripwires recently_ , he'd said. It always smells strange when the rains start melting the snow, Jack pointed out; but no, he hadn't.

They were all cut. And yes, there were some very strange indentations in the ground, neither covered by snow - anymore - nor muddy with melt. Something smells strange, indeed. Jack had sauntered off in an unconcerned sort of way, not letting his eyes linger on the indentations, muttering about kids, and stopped at every house on his way to tell them to evacuate. Immediately, unobtrusively, as if they were going for a picnic in the hills. The townspeople aren't the target; they should be safe enough if they can get out.

He hopes they did get out, because there's no getting out now.

There is an immense _bang_ as a grain silo goes up - and that was completely unnecessary, not even on the way, that’s just someone being _sadistic_ , burning the supply lines of what could never be called an army - and the unmistakable hydraulic tread of Cybermen. Invisible Cybermen. Just what Jack needed for an impressive new crop of nightmares.

“Any time now, Doctor,” he urges in a quiet sing-song. He checks his crossbow again, but it is just as ready as last time he checked. There may or may not be others about, waiting for targets to appear; an invisible enemy is a hell of a thing. The bolt, flung by a Doctor-optimised mechanism, will take out an unarmored biological of most sorts at one hundred metres if he can hit it; an armored Sontaran at somewhat less. He can punch a hole in a Cyberman and at least inconvenience it at twenty metres, and perhaps slow a Dalek down slightly at point blank range. Maybe break its weapon arm. He's probably more good as reusable bait, if there are Daleks. It is exceptionally painful but he does come back quickly. He hopes there aren't. The Doctor doesn't try to stop him from choosing his own deaths anymore, exactly, but he is never happy about it.

“Hah!” The Doctor hurtles past him and Jack nearly sends his crossbow bolt into, thank mercy for ingrained weapon safety, the dirt; he manages not to pull the trigger but it was uncomfortably close. “Cover!”

“Why are we running?” Jack yells, running.

The Doctor doesn’t go far, instead ducking around a cart in the lane. “Help,” he says, pulling at it, and together they tip it onto its side. Settling himself against it, he pauses to catch his breath. “May blow up. Probably.”

Nudging his crossbow a little further from the Doctor, Jack sits next to him and says dryly, “I feel very reassured.”

“Given the constraints, Jack, I think -” It doesn’t so much blow up as blow _out_ \- most of the windows and lights along the street, and Jack feels for a moment as if his ears have been inverted and filled with needles. The Doctor claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the startled scream of pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Shh, Jack, shh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to do that. Did it _work?_ ” He edges up as if to look over the cart and Jack shoves him down. Everything is much quieter of a sudden, but if he can still hear the Doctor it isn't his ears. The bell has gone silent atop the tower and something about it tugs at Jack's awareness but he has no attention to spare at the moment. Hauling himself to his knees, Jack clamps his hands to his ears just to try to convince himself they are where they should be, then takes a quick look.

It's still a horror show, but now it's a horror show with visible Cybermen and Sontaran ground assault vehicles - which despite the optics is an improvement. Smarter Sontarans are already spilling from their now-visible rides, jamming helmets over their heads. One of them falls as a bolt sprouts in his chest; the shooter draws fire from both Sontaran small arms and Cyberman blasters and Jack hopes they ducked quickly.

“Yes,” he says, realising he has been staring silently in dismay. With even greater dismay he realises the Doctor is staring with him. “Get _down_ , you idiot!” Jack hisses, pushing his head down. If the Cybermen have any brains left at all they'll be transmatting out any moment, but they haven't yet - maybe they don't - maybe they _can't_. Jack sinks down next to the Doctor again. “Got anything else up your sleeve?”

“Of course.” When Jack opens his hand in an inviting gesture, the Doctor clarifies. “Still working on it. But I'm sure I will do.”

Jack's head thumps back against the cart. One at a time it is, then. He has thirty bolts, there is at least one other person shooting - or was. “What a life, eh?”

“It's a brilliant life.” Surprised, Jack turns to look at his unexpectedly sincere-sounding lover. “I don’t regret it, Jack. Not a moment of it. This, here, is a life I never thought I would have. Never thought I _could_ have. And if I hadn’t _had_ to stay - But, Jack.” Those earnest eyes, a hint of a smile. “There may not be mortgages here, or 2 a.m. taxi rides, but if I had to be stuck with someone, I’m glad it was you.”

It is simultaneously hilariously faint praise and one of the sweetest things the Doctor has ever said to him. “We’re not dying here, Doctor,” Jack insists. After another quick check over their improvised barricade, he amends, “ _You’re_ not dying here, anyway. No last words necessary.”

“Well, even so.” He looks bizarrely, buoyantly cheerful; it takes Jack a moment to understand. “Get it out of the way, won’t have to tell you again. Clever, don’t you think?” The universe’s biggest adrenaline junkie is high again. He can grumble all he likes, and he _does_ , but he loves a tight situation, a risky proposition. Loves a good close look at death just for the joy of running the other way.

Taking advantage of the moment, Jack leans over and kisses him fiercely. “I’m glad it was me, too. Now get out of here! This cart is going to be splinters in a minute.” Hefting his crossbow, he turns back toward the advancing enemy just as the Mainframe begins its judgement. It is too bright to watch directly but squinting around the side of the cart he can see that only the ground assault vehicles are drawing fire in this first round; Sontaran body armour alone is probably not high tech enough to ping the sensors. The remaining Cybermen will be next, but not soon enough; their position is terrible. “Go,” he urges again, “you have to go.”

“Erm.” The Doctor’s face is more somber than before, when he glances over. “Where?”

From the direction Jack had pegged as _safe for now_ comes the flash of a Dalek gun and Jack freezes in horrified disbelief, mind free-wheeling through every potential scenario. One Dalek? A few Daleks? _Lots_ of Daleks? From one direction, or many? Allied, or taking advantage of the chaos? He can’t be a distraction _now_ , any movement will draw attention straight to their cart - the Doctor has to get away _first_ -!

Another flash along the street in front of them, so not just one, or from one direction. A Cyberman goes down, so not allied. Around the building behind them is still the best bet, if there are few Daleks, he’ll distract them there and the Doctor can slip away -

“Approach no one, Doctor,” comes the amplified voice of the Mother Superious from the sky. “We cannot guarantee your safety if you are seen. We declare the treaty broken; oathbreakers, witness your judgement! The peace shall be enforced!”

The Doctor lets out a whoop of glee, pumps his fist in the air before Jack can stop him. “That’s my girl! Oh, Tasha Lem, I could kiss you!”

“What? What is it?” Jack hisses, trying to contain a Time Lord who would rather be dancing a jig.

He grins madly. “She’s sent her Dalek-priests! Wonderful, marvelous woman. Turned her worst defeat into her greatest weapon - of course she did! Check and mate, Jack, now we’re getting somewhere.” Beginning to understand, Jack peers around their barricade again to see the unexpectedly welcome shapes of human and Silents advancing on the Cybermen and Sontarans, hands raised like Dalek gun arms and functioning just as well.

As he makes out the silhouette in the center, Jack whistles quietly, eyebrows climbing. “She’s come herself.”

“Of course she has,” the Doctor says, and tries to look; Jack pushes him down again.

“What part of _don’t be seen_ is hard for you to understand?” he demands, and the Doctor blinks at him innocently, then grins and shrugs. “Sit on your hands or something.” The only noise left is the crackle of flames and the screams of the invaders, and Jack notices again that the bell is silent. Of course he would expect it to be, now, but - but earlier? Barnable had been ringing it. The Doctor had told him to stay inside, to hide, but then again the tower would have been a primary target -

Why didn’t they _think_ of that?

“What?” the Doctor demands, pulling at his coat. “What, Jack?”

“Barney,” Jack chokes out, heart in his throat. “I’ve got to - Stay here, Doctor, _stay down_ or I will never forgive you, _never_ -!” Throwing himself to his feet, Jack takes off at a dead run, around the backs of the houses, hoping his understanding of where the Church’s forces are is correct, but caring less than he ought.

“Barney!” he calls as he gets close to the tower. It doesn’t _look_ destroyed - “Barnable!”

“Captain! Over here!” But it isn’t his voice, and Jack's guts twist like worms away from sudden light as he turns unwillingly to see Barnable sat upright against the base of a wall; deceptively upright because he is limp and still as a puppet with its strings cut. Jack’s golden boy, his muse, all the colour in his world gone in a breath and it’s wrong, all wrong, everything is _wrong_.

-+-+-+-

 


	16. Practically therapeutic

Barnable’s friend Ashra, one of the town’s best shots, crouches beside him, staring stricken up at Jack. “He was right there,” she points to the front corner of the building, “taking aim, and then there was a Cyberman and it just - it just _flung_ him -”

Jack can feel the fire inside him rushing up, breaking free of the barriers he keeps it confined behind so he doesn’t hurt the Doctor, but he can’t _control_ it like this - “Get back,” he gasps, clenches hands into fists, screws his eyes shut, and concentrates like never before, because if he dies here the Doctor will come running. He can’t seem to help it, some stupid reflex because it’s not as if anyone can do anything to help once he’s _dead_ -! But he can’t let it take him.

 _Enough_ , Jack wills, _enough and no more;_ opens his eyes and stumbles forward, falling to his knees before Barnable. Ashra backs away quickly, eyes wide, and who knows what she sees in his face but it’s enough to keep her safe. Nothing stupid like feeling for a pulse, looking for a breath - it may be superstitious of him but Jack believes, in cases like this, the less he observes the current state of the universe, the easier it is to change it. The only thing he is interested in is the result. Holding Barnable against him, Jack carefully straightens his neck, his back, untwists his arm, and, holding to the thought of _enough_ with all his might, kisses him.

Like a great fanged serpent, like a phoenix rising, the fire bores straight through him and all Jack can do is hold on though it tear him to pieces. He _can’t_ let it free. “Enough,” he growls, locked in battle with the eternal flame at the centre of him, holding a fragile and beloved human life in his hands. “And no more!”

Everything else falls away as he holds on, balanced on that knife's edge, too much practice letting it all leave him and none at all in controlling where it burns. He doesn’t die; he will not be the cause of the Doctor’s next death, today. The flames subside, and Jack gasps in relief. And Barnable breathes.

“Hey,” Jack whispers, trying to hold him less tightly. “Wake up, bright eyes.”

Groaning, Barnable rolls his head to the side. “Go ‘way, Captain, ‘m tired.”

Snorting softly, Jack nods to Ashra and says, “Thank you. I’ll take care of him. Will you look for anyone else? _Carefully_.” After a long look, and another glance at Barnable, she nods, and turns away. Jack begins a check for remaining injuries, hands moving quickly, pressing gently. “What were you doing out here, Barney?” The gash in his right hand is bad enough Jack suspects he’ll lose the use of a couple fingers. Jack binds it tight and moves on.

“Helping,” Barnable insists. “I’m not exempt from helping.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth as Jack moves his right shoulder slightly.

“You’re not exempt from _sensible choices_ -”

“None of that, Captain,” he sighs. “Love a stubborn mortal, love their mortal stubbornness. Don’t get to pick and choose.”

Trying not to let on how terrifyingly real that statement nearly was, Jack frowns at him, then moves to the side a bit to see his eyes better. “Spare me the drama. It’s not mortal, you’ll have plenty of time to regret it. Clinic for you, I suspect you’ve a concussion as well as injured your shoulder.” With great care he folds Barnable’s arm across his chest securely, gathers him up in his arms, settles his head against his shoulder, and stands. Short and slight, Barnable is no great weight; certainly much easier than hauling the Doctor around. Jack kisses his forehead gently. “Hush, love, I’ve got you. Rest now.”

“You only call me _love_ when you think I’m doing something stupid,” Barnable complains, slightly muffled against Jack’s coat.

Jack snorts. “It’s the stubbornness. I’m a sucker for it. And _don’t_ you take that as encouragement. I’ll call you _love_ anytime you like.” As Jack makes his way with as much haste as he dares toward the clinic, Barnable gradually relaxes against him, little pained grunts escaping when he is jostled. Glancing down, Jack sees his eyes are closed, his face turned into Jack’s shoulder. “It’s true all the time, anyway,” Jack points out quietly, suddenly unsure whether he has ever said.

“I know. Don’t fuss, Captain.”

Rolling his eyes, Jack carries on. “You spend too much time around the Doctor. Ruined you for the softer things in life.”

The Doctor finds them in the clinic as Barnable is having his hand painstakingly sewn up by Gemma. He gives Jack a very long look and Jack can all but hear the _we’ll speak later_. “Barnable! Ashra told me what happened. What the devil do you think you're doing, running off like that?”

Wincing as another suture goes in, Barnable sighs. “I was helping. I live here; I do my part.”

“You _were_ helping _me_ ,” the Doctor corrects, frowning as he scans him with the sonic, which looks somewhat the worse for wear. “ _Now_ you're injured and no help to anyone.” Jack can hear a small, pained noise as Barnable looks away, and if he heard it surely the Doctor did too; he tightens his arms around his - _him_ , and glares up at the Doctor, who has the grace to look slightly ashamed. “I… Sorry, Barnable. I didn't mean… you needn't be of use all the time, you know.”

 _To be loved_ , he means, but in leaving it unsaid he leaves the interpretation open, and Barnable invariably finishes that sort of sentence with _to be worthwhile_ , and disagrees. Jack sets a finger over his lips. “No,” he says gently. “This is how he fusses. You sure you wouldn't prefer my sort?”

With a slightly damp laugh, Barnable shakes his head. “Don't know how you two stand each other. Ouch.”

“Not so well, but stick around. Maybe we'll do better with someone else in the mix.”

Looking like he is trying to work out how to smile and frown at the same time, the Doctor clears his throat. “You've a moderate concussion,” he announces; Jack tries not to flinch at the thought of the bumpy walk to the clinic. He had done the best he could. “And a badly sprained shoulder, in addition to the hand. You may have torn it, too much swelling to tell yet. How's that coming?”

Gemma hums reassuringly as she finishes tying off a last suture; Barnable glances at her work fleetingly, then rests his head against Jack’s shoulder and admits quietly, “Better than the head.”

“It will heal cleanly,” Gemma elaborates, finished with her work. “You may lose some function in the last two fingers, but I can’t say for sure at this point. Come back in a week, don’t use it until then. Alright? Change the dressing twice a day.” She winds a bandage around to immobilise the hand; Jack watches carefully so he can replicate it. “Shouldn’t be too hard as you won’t be using your shoulder either. Bit of a miracle there's nothing else wrong. Don’t do anything for a week, really, Barnable.” She pats his knee sympathetically. “I know it’s not easy for you. Sit on him, if you have to,” she adds to Jack, and he grins and salutes.

“Yes, ma’am, will do, ma’am.”

Barnable doesn’t say anything, and Jack looks to the Doctor imploringly. He nods, and lays his hand gently against Barnable’s forehead. “Migraine?” Barnable nods, almost imperceptibly. “Will you sleep?” He nods again; the Doctor closes his eyes for a moment, and suddenly the weight of the head against Jack’s shoulder is much heavier.

“He doesn’t need to stay?” Jack verifies.

Gemma smiles. “Not with you two looking after him. Go on, then. Mind the shoulder.”

Barnable’s arm has already been bound safely to his chest, but Jack nods and shifts him with immense care even so. “I’ll carry him home.”

In the tower, Jack looks around at a bit of a loss. He can’t carry Barnable up the old spiral staircase, and he wouldn’t want to leave him alone up there even if he could; the sofa is available, but uncomfortable.

“Well? You can’t just keep holding him forever, Jack. Go put him in bed,” the Doctor says, gesturing toward their bedroom, as if it were the perfectly obvious answer.

“But -”

“It’s big enough, and he needs someone nearby. I can sleep upstairs.”

Jack frowns. “ _I_ can sleep upstairs.”

“ _You_ can take care of him. I’m rubbish at that, as you’re quite well aware.”

Shaking his head, Jack smiles and turns toward the bedroom. “You have your moments.” He sets Barnable down in bed after the Doctor pulls the blankets back, arranging him comfortably, then steps back and catches the Doctor about the waist. “He barely takes up any space,” Jack says quietly. “All alone there. I suppose it is a rather large bed.”

“Hm.” The Doctor kisses the corner of his mouth, lays his face against Jack’s neck. “If only you didn’t take up three quarters of it.”

“I can rein in the sprawl for a week,” Jack says, hopefully. “Probably. Worth a try?”

“Worth a try,” the Doctor agrees; Jack can hear his smile. “Keep him from trying to get up the moment he wakes up, anyway.”

“You would know about that.”

“I might.” He laughs softly. “Finding you in bed with me when I wake is very nearly the only thing that’s ever stopped me.”

“Well, then,” Jack says, pleased, and lets his hands roam beneath the Doctor's coat, up his back, and down. “Practically therapeutic, I am.”

-+-+-

Jack is busily pretending everything is fine, making the tea, asking after the Church forces. “Your face,” the Doctor says quietly, and Jack pauses, back turned. “When you realised Barnable was in danger, your face was terrible. Jack -”

“I know we’ll lose him someday,” Jack says quickly, almost angrily. “Of course I know. But _not today_.”

“Not today,” the Doctor agrees, very glad to do so. Still. “We almost did, though, didn’t we.”

Silently, Jack finishes with the tea. He sets the Doctor’s in front of him, but doesn’t sit down; instead he goes to look in on Barnable again. When he comes back he leans against the counter, arms crossed, eyes shuttered. “I'd rather you didn't tell him.”

“That's what I told Ashra. Or rather, I told her it's a dangerous thing you can't control, and that Barnable mustn't have been dead, and that it wouldn't help him to know you'd hurt yourself to heal him.”

“The last one is certainly true,” Jack agrees, looking away. He offers no information on the other claims, and the Doctor doesn't ask, in case it should be convenient again someday to assert them as truth. “I wondered if you would feel it, even if I didn't die. You're not going to yell at me?”

“I do feel it. You feel… deeper, somehow, when you do - whatever you did. Do I really yell at you that much?” Jack's recurring fear of him doing so seems entirely out of proportion to what the Doctor can remember of his own reactions.

Jack opens his mouth, hesitates, and then says quietly, “No. But I remember every time you do.”

“I'm sorry, Jack.” He doesn't say what for, because how could he enumerate it all? “It didn’t happen today. That’s enough for me.”

-+-+-

Barnable sleeps for long enough that Jack finally sleeps as well, bracketing him in the big bed, trying not to take up too much space. He wakes to find Barnable shifting about, trying to rid himself of his bookends.

“We put you there so you couldn't get away, you know,” Jack notes mildly.

Eyeing him woozily, Barnable mumbles, “Need a piss.”

“Well. As long as you come back.” It turns out he needs help walking, though, so he hasn't a great deal of choice in the matter. Once Jack gets him resituated to his satisfaction, the Doctor crowds up against him without quite waking up.

Dismayed, Barnable whispers, “Is he always like this?”

“Oh yes. Surprisingly snuggly, this one. Just - oh, no, you can’t shove him.” He is lying against Barnable’s injured side, so Jack reaches across and does it for him. “There. He just likes the warmth.” And the reassurance that Barnable is still with them; after all, that’s why Jack is there.

“And you, Captain? You’re not shy about snuggling, either.”

Jack grins; it’s not the first time he’s been accused of being overly friendly in his sleep. “I can’t help it if you’re dead sexy.” That was a terrible choice of words - that was a terrible choice of _audience_. Barnable's expression closes off and he looks up at the ceiling. Propping himself up on his elbow, Jack twines his fingers loosely with Barnable’s and says gently, “You know I think you’re attractive. What’s wrong, Barney?”

“I can’t… I don’t… have anything to contribute, here. To this. Us.” His hand twitches in Jack’s as if to gesture. “I’m a liability in a fight. I’m not clever enough to beat them without fighting. I can't rebuild the town afterward. I’m new, and young, and you two have so much together, and I’m not… equal. I can’t be equal. And even the things I could do, comfort and snuggling and sex, I _choose_ not to do.” He takes a deep breath and looks at Jack, who is frowning at him in mild consternation. This sort of insecurity does tend to happen to his partners, but it would be worse with the Doctor about, he supposes. “My da says relationships are about compromise. I could compromise, Captain.”

“No,” Jack says, and then changes his mind, “I mean I’m up for whatever you want, love. But you don’t need to _earn_ a place here, and certainly not by doing things you don’t want to do. Except inasmuch as no one _wants_ to clean the bathroom, I guess. If the comments really bother you, though…” Barnable shakes his head, and Jack decides, provisionally, to believe him. They haven’t seemed to before now, in any case. “That’s not something I can change about myself. Not many people I've met I wouldn't have sex with, in the right circumstances - but those circumstances always include them wanting to have sex with me. You're not taking something away from me, Barney. There isn’t something _missing_. I might have fantasies, but I'll never push you to fulfill them. This isn't the kind of thing we need to compromise on.”

Silently, Barnable searches his face, but Jack meant every word; sincerity is all that's there. Lips tilting up in a quizzical smile, Barnable tugs at his hand; when that doesn't produce results other than a raised eyebrow, he lets go and tugs at his shirt to pull Jack's face down to his. He closes his eyes as Jack brushes his lips lightly, traces his lower lip with the tip of his tongue, learns the shape of his mouth, the taste of him, with a yearning delicacy as if it were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - which it very well might be.

Barnable is smiling wistfully when he pulls away, and shakes his head at Jack's enquiring look. “Doesn't do much for me. I'm sorry.” Face going pink abruptly, he glances away. “But I like watching you, sometimes.”

Isn't _that_ a fascinating new fact. “Anytime you like. It’s alright. All of it, it's alright.” Jack lays his head down against Barnable's shoulder. “All of you. You're very comforting, just as you are. Even a bit snuggly. But you know, Barney.” His voice drops to a whisper. “I'll never be equal either. We're only human.”

-+-+-+-

 


	17. The time they have

Frustrated, Jack crosses his arms and scowls at his - at his - he always gets stuck here. His _Barnable_. Singular and stubborn. Unusual in Jack’s experience, Barnable has never pushed for any declaration or definition. “I didn't think anyone could be a worse patient than the Doctor.”

“I'm _fine_ ,” Barnable grunts as he continues to attempt to put on his shirt by himself, stubbornly. His face is white as snow.

“You clearly don't want a working shoulder.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I _have_ a working shoulder, and it's going to _atrophy_ if I keep sitting around doing nothing.” His movements are becoming more forceful as his frustration gets the better of him; Jack steps forward to intervene before he injures himself further.

“Stop,” he says gently, wrapping his arms around Barnable. “You're just going to hurt it again. And then we'll have to do this all over again.” He still feels tense and resistant. “You can't tell me you think that's a normal amount of pain?”

“How should I know?” Barnable exclaims, with a laugh that sounds more like a sob; but he finally stops fighting. Releasing him, Jack carefully helps him on with his shirt. “It doesn't seem so bad.”

“Oh, bright eyes.” Jack kisses his forehead and turns to look at the loom he is so keen to return to. “Maybe if you told me what to do…?” The horrified disbelief on his face is so hilarious Jack immediately breaks into laughter - although he had meant the offer sincerely. “Ye of little faith! Maybe not, then.”

“Maybe not,” Barnable agrees, relieved.

“You need as much range of motion as we can salvage, love,” Jack reminds him, as he has every day for weeks. Singular, and stubborn, and beloved. “Gentle exercise. Considerably less pain than I just saw you in.”

Sighing, Barnable leans against him and sniffles, very quietly. “You're remarkably patient, Captain.”

“Mm,” Jack agrees noncommittally, hiding a grin in golden hair. “Should see what I've had to practice with.”

Downstairs the Doctor is fiddling around with some sort of arrangement of things like induction coils, fussing them into precise positions. Another home-grown detection technology, Jack suspects; although he doubts anyone will try again for a while. The Church has rallied impressively from twenty years of hardship.

“The Captain says you're a bad patient,” Barnable announces to the Doctor, keeping his hands well away from the gadgets.

“They do say doctors make the worst patients,” the Doctor agrees absently. “Jack, can you think of any reason _why_ a heptagonal arrangement would work better than pentagonal?”

“He says I'm worse,” Barnable says proudly, before Jack can disavow any knowledge.

Eyeing him askance, the Doctor purses his lips thoughtfully; then his gaze darts to Jack and he winks. “I'm not surprised.”

“I didn't realise this was a _competition_ ,” Jack groans. “See if you catch me playing nursemaid again.”

“You love it,” the Doctor says, and Jack doesn’t dare argue; what if he’s right? “Get you a frilly little costume next time and we’ll all enjoy it more.” Barnable escapes, muffling laughter, but Jack can’t help noticing he doesn’t actually _object_.

-+-+-

“Oh, for God's sake, you two. _Most_ people quit shagging like bunnies by the time they’re eighty.” The first time Barnable had walked in on them, years ago, they hadn't even noticed, so quickly and quietly had he fled; but the blush the next day when Jack asked him where he'd been was a bit of a giveaway. The second time he had been scandalised by the use of the kitchen table and ordered them to bed - and then collapsed in horrified laughter when they stared at him in shock. It got easier after that, and they _tried_ , they did try, but sometimes… Well, impulse control has never been a particular strength of either of them. It's no surprise Barnable has reached a level of resigned tolerance for their antics, now that he lives in. And he had been _occupying_ the bed -!

“Join in or shut up, Barney - ow!” Gasping, Jack lets his head fall to the back of the sofa again. The Doctor has a wicked way with a palm on bare skin. “That hurt!”

“It was meant to,” the Doctor agrees, thrusting hard. Jack moans and doesn't reply. “Be polite or he's likely to move out.”

“Don’t go,” Jack mumbles, face mashed into the rough fabric. “I’m polite. Sometimes. _Doctor_ -”

“No touching.” He smacks Jack’s arse again, not quite as hard, and Jack clenches his hands in the cushion. “I expect you woke him up, and you know he needs the sleep.”

“Actually,” Barnable chimes in, from so much closer that Jack’s head jerks up wildly to locate him, “I think that was you, Doctor. And I hope you were planning to clean up your mess.” He is _right next to_ Jack, those lovely grey eyes considering Jack curiously as he slides a towel underneath him - without touching at all. Jack whimpers, can’t tear his eyes away as Barnable backs away. The Doctor’s hand slides slowly down his thigh, slowly back up, but _still_ doesn’t touch his cock.

“Terribly sorry,” the Doctor says, voice at a passable imitation of steady. “Shan’t be long.” He pulls Jack back hard against him again and Jack groans, eyes falling closed.

“Please,” he begs, “ _please_ touch me.” He doesn’t know who he is begging. Anyone. When he opens his eyes Barnable is across the room, _staring_ at him, intent and fascinated. The force of his gaze is a physical thing, burning through Jack, he can feel the rush of it sweeping down his body, pushing him hard and fast toward the edge - the Doctor wants him to wait but he _can’t_ -! With a strangled groan Jack comes hard, eyes rolling up though he tries to keep watching Barnable.

“Captain -!” the Doctor exclaims, startled, and then he is following him down, hips jerking as he loses himself inside Jack.

“Sorry,” Jack gasps, but the delighted smirk on Barnable’s face makes it all worth it. Jack grins into the sofa. Owned by _two_ stubborn men who know what they want from him; life could hardly be better.

-+-+-

“It was a long game, it seems,” the Doctor says, spinning his tea cup slowly between his palms after another conference with Tasha. “A very long game. Years in the making. Every time there was transmat activity, a cloaked Cyberman hitched a ride as well; silent, invisible, on standby. Disused corners, behind trees, we're lucky they didn't think to put one down right on top of the tower. I certainly don't go poking around the edges on a regular basis.”

Barnable shudders. “What an awful thought. All around us, watching.”

“Tasha was shockingly complimentary, on the whole. She isn't often,” he adds, for Barnable's benefit; he has proven uninterested in speaking to the head of his Church face to face. A strange omission for his brave Barnable, but he supposes her face is rather intimidating. Especially when one's first sight of it is an enormous floating apparition in the sky.

“That's an understatement,” Jack mutters, head in his hands. “So it was just _luck_ -?”

Affronted, the Doctor scoffs. They will be a long time rebuilding the town, but the loss of life was minimal; a success, all told. “It wasn't luck, I told you something smelled bad.”

“We'd have all been able to smell those Sontarans soon,” Barnable says, with a good try at a carefree laugh.

“So you would,” the Doctor agrees. “They won't be back for a long time though, I shouldn't think, not with the Church willing to come down and destroy them in person.” He reaches out and gently coaxes Barnable's left hand away from the fork he is fiddling nervously with; his right he still carries tucked protectively close. “I would be very surprised if you ever saw a Cyberman again, Barnable.”

Eyes wide and frightened, Barnable stares at him for a moment, then looks away and swallows. “Yes. Good. I'd be much worse than surprised, so that's… good.”

Jack catches his gaze for a moment, eyes deep with recent and anticipated pain, but says nothing; certainly doesn’t point out that Barnable never seeing another Cyberman is very different from them never coming back. Tasha will do everything in her not inconsiderable power to keep the peace, but eventually war will return to the surface of Trenzalore. Best make good use of the time they have.

-+-+-

It’s a bit of a joke, calling it _summer_ ; it is the season of storms, every kind of precipitation Christmas gets in quick succession, followed by gusting wind and days of crystal clear skies and aurorae of stupendous intensity. It is also the most painful season for Barnable, and although he lives in easy reach of relief, he refuses to spend half his life asleep so the household is often rather subdued this time of year.

“It’s not as fun without you,” Jack says, when Barnable insists he go to the Midsummer celebration alone. It’s the second time it’s happened since Jack asked him to dance five years ago. The Doctor is already there, of course, along with the rest of the town; he won't be at all _alone_ , but it feels like it. Summer solstice is for dancing with Barnable.

Pulling his pillow over his head, Barnable mutters, “Bad enough being me without you moping around as well, _go away_ , Captain. I expect to hear you’ve danced with at least six other people, I’ve someone watching you. Have fun or die trying.”

“Did you just -” He gets more salty the more pain he is in, but so far Jack’s tendency toward excessive mortality has been off-limits for joking.

“Yes, I joked about dying. Put it in your diary. I love you, now for God’s sake, go away.”

Jack goes away, smiling. He dances with six people, plus the Doctor, drinks plenty and enjoys himself thoroughly, then makes his excuses and comes home early to curl up with a book next to Barnable’s restlessly slumbering form. Every moment stolen back from the jaws of death is precious, whatever life brings. They can dance later. Any day. Every day.

-+-+-+-

 


	18. The silence between them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dear readers, you may have been wondering what this story is about, after all that fluff. You were promised angst and heartbreak, and I think I can deliver. Thank you for your patience._   
>    
>  _Chapter is NSFW. I believe this is best described as dub-con, in the context of the relationship between Jack and the Doctor in this series, but you could make a good case for non-con. The intersection of trauma, guilt, need, and love is nowhere I would like to set up shop._

When everything is calm, the days start to run together in an undistinguished cycle: dress, breakfast, teach, wait for the sun, tea, tidy, tinker, sleep. Like all the years before Jack came, all the years the Doctor kept this planet safe by his clever words, clever tricks, but mostly only by his presence. Without anyone testing the defenses it is only his presence required, which offers him no challenge to measure himself or his days against. And still they slip past, more than a decade of mortal days, one after another.

There are the occasional problems in the town, of course. The sawmill is a perennial favorite of his, and the hydroelectric generator underneath it. The town is not completely without technology; no right-thinking person would set down a colony on a world of perpetual darkness without providing a foundation for life. No right-thinking person would stay to attempt that life. But the generator is small, and most of its output goes to light, the scarcest resource of Trenzalore. Not having been designed as a home, his tower has only a few wall sconces to light the way up, and he had never felt the need to change that. Fire and lamps are good enough; they're cozy.

He _had_ insisted on renovating the tower with quite a bit of indoor plumbing. The electricity runs, as well, a well-designed sewage processing module, because even though Christmas had begun as a forestry outpost and not a town at all, some things are just necessary. But aside from the technology which no one but him knows a thing about anymore, the whole thing ticks along without him swimmingly.

It was easier to forget that, without people in his own home _also_ ticking along without him swimmingly.

He hadn’t expected to find himself lonely again. That was over when Jack arrived; at least for a while; at least he had expected so. There had _been_ loneliness, years and decades and centuries and _enough_ of loneliness. There had been that tearing emptiness inside, that lack of any proper companionship; sometimes assuaged by a visit to Tasha, sometimes a conversation with Handles. Sometimes the festivals and parties with the children could ward it off for a while. And sometimes it was crushing, the loss of the TARDIS a yawning pit in his mind that swallowed him whole. Entire generations had known him as a foul-tempered tyrant. And yet, through all of the loneliness, the top of his little tower had been different. The closest to the stars he could come, anymore; the best view of the few minutes of daylight each day. Up here he had found solitude instead of loneliness.

Now, when solitude would be welcome and loneliness seems ridiculous, it is loneliness that comes creeping in.

Well, he knows how to fix that.

With a determined huff of breath, the Doctor stands. It's a good day, everything working nicely, but the cane is still a help getting up. The cane Jack made him - but he isn't interested in charitable thoughts right now. He makes his way down the stairs as quietly as he can, across the main room, but Jack is in the kitchen and pokes his head out as the Doctor opens the front door.

“Tea in a few minutes, where -”

“ _Out_ ,” the Doctor snaps, and pulls the door shut behind him. And that's another thing. Tea. It is his tower, his town; why is he the one left out? He hurries to the TARDIS before Jack thinks to poke his nosy face out here, too, to see where he is off to.

Once inside, things are better. Although she is mostly shut down, conserving power, she gives him a soft light around the console, a quiet hum of welcome. “Back again,” the Doctor says, patting the console fondly. “And how are you, sexy?” Slowly circling the console, he checks dials and displays, taps gauges; all is well. Just a boy and his box, and all is well.

It is nearly an hour before Jack manages to disturb him. “Doc?” he calls, as he opens the door, peers in. Maybe if he's silent - but something, maybe the light, gives him away. “Ah. Nice place to hide.”

All the benefits of solitude abruptly fled, the Doctor retorts angrily, “Don't call me Doc.”

Jack stops in his tracks, just a few steps in, and stares at him for a long moment. “Alright. I'm sorry. Will you have tea?”

“ _No_. I don't want it.” It's not right, anyway, nothing is right about this new normal Jack has forged for the household. He is tired of eating alone. “Never around when I want you, are you, but any time I want to _think_ , there you are, poking your nose in every moment.”

He just looks confused now, and it's infuriating. “When you want me? Doctor -”

Scowling, the Doctor turns away. “Go _away_ , Jack, go make your supper and eat it with Barnable and make besotted eyes at each other and leave me be. I _don't_ want you.” Being able to say the last sentence cheers him up, just a little. The TARDIS's doors shut out the truth field just as well as everything else. Everything but Jack.

“Yes, Doctor,” Jack says, finally, and goes.

Like everything else today, it is unsatisfying.

-+-+-

Jack swallows, rubs his face, tries to ground himself in the here and now; the crisp clear air with the smell of woodsmoke always in it, the light of the moons on the remnants of snow, the silhouette of the tower solid against the sky. For a terrible moment he had been back in that bright long-ago console room as if no time had passed at all, as if he were still the captured plaything of a merciless Time Lord, as if he were still cuffed and kept and killed at the whim of a mad god.

He had thought himself past that. Traumatic of course, but if anyone is an expert on trauma it must be Jack Harkness; he had dealt with it. Moved on. Apologies dispensed with, all's well that ends well, no need to dwell.

_Go away. I don't want you._

He wants someone else; someone he won’t talk about. He always has. Barnable is cutting vegetables in the kitchen when Jack returns, continuing where he had left off. He puts down the knife as Jack winds his arms around his waist and buries his nose in his hair. “What’s wrong?”

 _He doesn’t want me,_ Jack doesn’t say. “He’s upset.”

“About what?”

He can’t try to claim not to know; who knows what would come out of his mouth. “I’m not sure.” Barnable turns halfway in his arms, looks up at him with a keen eye. “Me, not you. I’ll figure it out. He said… I’m never around, when he wants me.”

“He’s lonely again,” Barnable says. Jack shrugs, too aware of his own compromised mental state to be certain of his interpretation of the Doctor’s. “You know he likes to have you all to himself, sometimes. Do you want me to go?”

Jack holds him tighter. “Never.”

Laughing, Barnable twists until Jack loosens his arms again. “Not like that. _Ought_ I to go, then? Vessa doesn’t mind putting me up for a few days. The children are grown but there’s always something to help with.”

Unable to justify the sick anxiety in the pit of his stomach, Jack can’t argue and won’t beg. “If you like,” he says instead. It doesn’t _feel_ like the times they’ve needed a bit of space before, but Barnable is right about a great many things; he is probably right about this, too.

“I will then. Just a few days. It gets a little crowded around here sometimes, I know.”

When Jack tells the Doctor, later, that Barnable has gone to help at the farm for a few days, he just grunts. It's better than the catty comment Jack was half expecting, but it only makes the silence between them deeper, and Jack can't rid himself of the feeling of slow evisceration, the cut too swift to dodge and now… now what's inside is being pulled out where it was never meant to be. That pain should never have come to light again. He had buried it so deep he hadn't even known it was there, but now a little more seeps out every time the Doctor looks away, every time he ignores Jack’s attempts to be there, to be noticed. When the Doctor reaches for him he shies away; when the Doctor gives him orders he obeys, hoping to be taken care of, hoping to find a peace in the love that must still be there.

But when there is no peace he cannot run. He is the Doctor's, still and always.

-+-+-

Jack is mocking him. As if being lonely and needing solitude are somehow incompatible. Barnable has gone, as he does every now and then - he has a good sense of when the Doctor needs space, always has - but still Jack won’t engage with him, is no useful sort of company at meals, barely speaks in fact. He doesn’t _go_ anywhere, just busies himself with cleaning and housework, cooking and any sort of thing the Doctor thinks to request; it’s maddening having him underfoot all day.

If he says, “Is there tea?” Jack says, “Yes, Doctor,” and brings it to him.

If he says, “Come here,” Jack does; if he says, “Go away,” Jack does.

If he complains about any ridiculous thing, Jack apologises and tries to fix it. He doesn't argue, doesn't get upset - he's had worse of him, the Doctor supposes. Jack doesn't want him to mention that anymore, though.

If he says, “Talk to me, Jack,” Jack looks at him, bewildered, and asks what he ought to talk about. What is wrong with the man?

He tries asking that, as well, but Jack has no answer. Knelt there at the Doctor’s side, his eyes are deep and startlingly empty, and the Doctor suddenly remembers other times. Jack twitches as the Doctor runs fingers through his hair, down to settle at the back of his neck. Tilting Jack’s head up with the heel of his palm under his jaw, the Doctor says sternly, “Captain,” and a shudder runs through him, once; then he relaxes. Usually Jack manages to ask him for help first, before he loses words. It’s certainly more convenient that way. “I wish you’d told me.”

“Sorry, Doctor,” he whispers, eyes focused somewhere slightly to the left of the Doctor’s face.

“Yes,” the Doctor agrees, “I imagine you will be.” He slides his hand around to Jack’s throat, presses hard, and feels a thrill run through him at the little whimpering whine. His, his alone this side of Jack; has he simply not been asking for it enough, lately? Well, he hasn’t been, it’s true enough. But he hasn’t forgotten. “Up,” he orders, and Jack struggles to his feet, pulled by the pressure on his throat; he gasps as the Doctor releases him. He is already hard, trousers looking uncomfortably tight. As isolated as the Doctor has been feeling lately, they haven’t had sex in - he has no idea, actually. More than a month? Jack is probably on a hair trigger. That’s always fun.

He takes Jack to the edge before even undressing him, backing him to the wall, kissing him deeply, biting and sucking at his throat, his pulse, at anything he can reach as they rut against each other, as Jack moans in beautiful need. Jack groans, disappointed but unsurprised, when the Doctor pulls away and pushes him to his knees. Leaning in as the Doctor opens his trousers, he opens his mouth and the Doctor pushes in deep without giving him any time to adjust. Jack's breath is coming in broken gasps around his cock as he speeds up and reflexive tears well up in his eyes; but Jack likes it that way. The Doctor is quickly too far gone to do more than keep his rhythm, hold Jack close as he loses himself in that glorious heat.

His own need sated, the Doctor considers his lover. Not done yet, certainly; as much distress as he’d been in, he will need more than a little pushing around. He needs a challenge.

“Up, Captain.” He trembles as the Doctor runs hands lightly down his chest, tugs him close by his braces, kisses him gently until his eyes slide closed and he sighs. Then the Doctor opens his trousers, slips behind him, and takes his cock firmly in hand as Jack groans and leans against him. “Strip,” the Doctor says, lips against the back of his neck, stroking steadily. “And don’t come.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jack says, in a tone of resigned misery. He already can’t keep his hips from jerking. Fingers fumbling at buttons, he works as fast as he can, but he doesn't even finish with his shirts before he slows to a halt, those telltale deep gasping breaths all he can manage as he fights his orgasm.

“Don't come, Captain,” the Doctor says quietly, letting his breath stir Jack's hair, his lips brush his ear; not stilling his hand. The noise Jack makes in return is exquisitely, thrillingly desperate, high and choked and nearly panicked.

The Doctor stops, and Jack struggles to catch his breath as if he had been sprinting. With shaking hands he pulls his undershirt off; as he starts to push his trousers down the Doctor starts up again. “Please!” Jack sobs, hunching forward slightly, protectively.

“Please, what?” He licks a line up Jack's neck to his ear; Jack shudders, and the shudder turns into a thrust of his hips, and his hips don't stop thrusting.

“I can't, I can't, I can't,” he is crying, in time with his thrusts.

The Doctor stops again, but Jack doesn't, so he lets go his cock, steps back, and spanks him, hard.

“Thank you,” Jack gasps, swaying on his feet, “thank you, thank you -”

Was it _too much_ of a challenge? Jack is a fascinating puzzle some days. He clearly wants to please, but he is probably too afraid of failing now to be enjoying the difficulty. Perhaps he just needs to be mindless, for a while. There is a place he goes sometimes, beyond words, beyond thoughts, that provides him rest from the endless grind of years; perhaps time has caught up with him again, somehow, memories come home to roost. “Go lay on the bed, Captain,” the Doctor says, and as Jack fumbles his boots and remaining clothes off and collapses on the bed he steps away to shed his excess layers and fix his trousers and fetch a soft rope. “You did well,” he says, sitting on the bed to stroke Jack's cheek reassuringly, watch him begin to relax. “You did very well. No more words now. I'll take care of you.” Flushed and wild-eyed, Jack watches him silently as the Doctor gathers up his wrists and ties them to the headboard, made by Jack with this purpose in mind. The fewer choices remaining to him, the easier it is to lose himself in the moment.

The heat of him radiates. The Doctor fancies he can perceive the plume of his breath, swirling currents of warmth in the air, invisible but physical; the reverse of how timelines swirl about him, visible but ethereal. This man shuddering here under his hands somehow the same as the still center of Time, the living embodiment of a Fact of nature. The very human, and today at least, very needy, embodiment.

“You are magnificent,” the Doctor murmurs as he slides his hands from Jack's wrists down smooth skin to the inside of his elbows, feels muscles shift as he nears his shoulders. Jack moans softly. His hips rock absently, thrusting against nothing as the Doctor continues slowly down his body. “My sun, my sky, the light of my days, the warmth of my nights.” When he looks back to Jack's face his eyes are closed and there are wet tracks of tears arcing down to his ears. The Doctor wipes them away gently. “Hush now, Captain, I'll take care of you.”

The fire of him is balm to the Doctor's recent unhappy days - how _had_ they become so estranged? inch by inch and day by day, he supposes - and he shifts closer, unbuttons his own shirt one-handed that he might have more skin to press close, without losing contact. When he reaches Jack's cock he does no more than loosely circle it with his fingers, lets Jack's own uncontrolled motion push him forward until he is writhing, moaning again; then he pulls away.

For nearly an hour the Doctor keeps him at the edge, shuddering and straining and crying out until he is lost in a mindless haze. His eyes open and close without awareness shining through, and his breaths come in heavy, irregular gasps, and the Doctor wonders if it is finally enough. Something feels… wrong. Incomplete. He is laid out next to Jack, pressed against his side, in easy reach of lips or ear or exposed throat or bite-marked chest, and Jack is twisting against him, motion long deteriorated to a mindless search for release. Sliding down, the Doctor pins Jack's hips to the bed which only makes him more frantic, broken whimpers all the noise he is making anymore; they stop entirely, along with his breath, as the Doctor licks his tormented cock and slowly takes it into his mouth. Jack gasps, and then he is keening as he bucks hard, again, and again, and again.

When the Doctor lets him go he lies there, deeply still; but not so far gone the Doctor has to remind him to breathe, at least, which is… is it good? He doesn't want to let go.

Nonetheless, he does; there is his Captain to take care of, after all. Unties him, rubs his wrists and hands, arranges him comfortably. He goes to get a flannel, and a glass of water, and cleans him off gently and pulls a blanket up and lays beside him, pulling him close, well aware of his desire for touch as he recovers. The Doctor reads, and waits, and wonders.

He watches Jack carefully for the rest of the day, but sees no signs of the relaxation he expected, no lightening of mood, no return of cheer; nothing has changed. Somehow, it was not enough. What hell is he lost in?

-+-+-+-

 


	19. Gone too far

“Captain?” Concern clear on his face, Barnable pokes his head around the corner; that beautiful smile crowds it out as he spots Jack, who smiles back at him in welcome. He had probably failed to respond to an earlier greeting. “I'm back. You two get whatever it was worked out?”

Not thrilled about this line of questioning, Jack shakes his head and turns back to his cleaning.

“You're not speaking to me?” The hurt in his voice is too much, on top of everything. Putting down his rag, Jack goes to him, pulls him into his arms, kisses his straw-gold hair. In Jack’s eyes he is unchanged by the years, save the short beard he wears now, rough against Jack’s chest; and when his arms wind around Jack’s waist, the right one never reaches quite as high as it did the year before.

“Not you, bright eyes.”

“You're not speaking at all,” he guesses; Jack nods. “Did he tell you not to?” It's more than he usually asks, but then it's not Jack who has boundaries about these things. He has to think about it to remember, though. After a pause, he shakes his head. Barnable sighs. “Alright. That's… I'm sorry things aren't going well, love.”

There is relief and worry in equal measure in his voice, and the endearment, so rare from this man, is shattering. Why relief? That the Doctor hadn't ordered Jack not to speak to him? “He wouldn't,” Jack whispers, and tries to feel certain.

“I'd not think it most days, but this is not normal, Captain. Whatever is going on here… I hope it gets sorted quickly. I shouldn't have gone, I think.” Jack swallows, throat tight, and hides his face in Barnable's hair, and thinks of nothing.

There is no reassurance he can give; if he could think of any he would tell himself. Barnable feels like part of a different life, a distant one where he doesn't wake confused by his surroundings, where he can speak and his thoughts don't run in circles, where bare wrists during the day are not a source of greater anxiety than nights tied to the bed next to a man he feels wildly different about from one moment to the next. Where he understands the rules.

-+-+-

Nothing seems to help. The Doctor has searched his memory, back and back and back, every time he can think of that Jack has needed this relief of him, all the way back to the beginning which he is loathe to revisit - and how would Jack have come to be in such a state, anyway? But none of it is working. Jack came to him for help, and he is _failing_.

It doesn’t help when Barnable comes home, either. He has no reference for this, no understanding at all of the darkness they have encountered and lived through and _perpetrated_ in their long lives, separately and together. He can’t possibly understand the things necessary sometimes to deal with that darkness. Usually they love that about him, Jack and the Doctor both; usually the light he brings is joy and new chances and fresh perspectives, but not now. Right now, it feels like judgement.

Reluctantly, the Doctor tries outright pain. He himself is far from a state of mind where he could enjoy or even feel satisfaction from hurting Jack, but sometimes nothing else will do for him. It’s not clear whether it helps; it changes _something_ , but it doesn’t fix Jack. He seems less confused when the Doctor is hurting him, more settled, but no more present, and no better afterward. And Barnable…

He knows they play rough, sometimes, and take comfort in things he doesn’t understand. Whatever Jack said to him when he returned was enough that he was willing to stand back and watch with muted concern Jack’s submissive silence. But as the days wear on the concern turns to alarm, and hearing Jack in pain must surely be nightmarish for him; the Doctor suggests leaving again but Barnable just glares at him and stomps away. It’s no better for the Doctor, but Jack came to him for _help_. Somehow, he must be able to provide it.

But the accusation in Barnable’s eyes, and the deadness in Jack’s, on top of his own continued failure is rapidly becoming more than he can bear.

-+-+-

The Doctor has left Jack knelt on the floor by the bed, head leaning against it dully, hands tied behind his back. Jack drifts, but quick, light footsteps recall him. Barnable is bracing the Doctor, finally, and he is angry.

“What are you _doing?_ ” he hisses; but Jack has good hearing.

“Mind your own business,” the Doctor snaps back, not so quietly. “There are things here you don't understand.”

“This _is_ my business! You can't imagine, after all these years, that I love him any less because we don't have _sex?_ You, of all people?” He sucks a breath through his teeth at whatever the Doctor's reaction is. “You're abusing him.”

“I am _not_ ,” the Doctor retorts, voice low and furious. Jack can't even begin to sort out his reactions as he pictures the scene; fear of that fury, and lust as well, and love and admiration for brave Barnable, standing in the path of that storm for him, and anger for the stupidity of it, and fear for him, and the twin refrains of _help me_ and _want me_ that have led them all so far astray. A whine starts in his throat, a trembling he has no control over, and Jack presses his face to the bed. “He needs this sometimes,” the Doctor is saying. “Needs someone to take control, to take away his choices and thoughts and worries. _You_ can't imagine.”

Did he ask for this, by word or deed? Jack doesn't know anymore. He just wants to be good enough.

“You've got so good at using the truth to lie that you're lying to yourself now,” Barnable says, an icy intensity in his voice. It only makes the shivering worse. “What you're talking about, I've seen that. It's joyous, for him, it's love and surrender and it's a _gift_. But everything he gives you, it's never enough, you keep asking more and you are _breaking_ him.” His voice drops lower and Jack cannot make it out; and then, without waiting for an answer from the Doctor, he marches away.

A time passes without Jack having any sense of how long; only he is trembling, and his knees ache and his legs ache and his shoulders ache and there is a quiet sort of whining noise that starts and stops and starts again, and won't go away. And then the Doctor's uneven footsteps, the soft thud of his cane. He sets the handle under Jack's chin and raises his head, examines him expressionlessly. “Am I?” he asks quietly, but Jack doesn't know so he doesn't answer. The Doctor unties his wrists. “Go take a warm bath, Jack. You don't look well.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jack tries to say, but although his lips move no words come out. He hauls himself to his feet and goes to draw a bath.

He wakes later, coughing painfully, with his arms hooked over the sides of the tub and the water draining out, unsure what happened and with no one around to ask. Still coughing, he dries himself off and stumbles to bed, curls up under the blankets, and sleeps.

-+-+-

 _And I will take him from you if I must._ He was _there_ , and his memory keeps having trouble attributing those cold, determined words to their easygoing Barnable. The Doctor can’t imagine how he might do so, but he doesn’t doubt he would try. Shuddering in relief and despair, the Doctor wraps his arms around himself as he feels Jack revive. It had been criminally careless of him, sending Jack to take a bath alone in such a state. He has gone too far again, down the wrong path, and now he must find a way back for all of them.

-+-+-

When Jack wakes, the Doctor is asleep beside him and Jack is confused; he is not tied to the bed. He doesn't move.

The rest of the day is not better. “Jack,” the Doctor says, which is not what he usually says, and not how he usually says it, “I want you to think of one thing you want to do today.”

Jack stares at him, feeling lost, and then, when the Doctor just looks at him expectantly, attempts to think about it. “Make breakfast?” he suggests cautiously.

The Doctor smiles, and Jack smiles back hesitantly. Maybe… maybe he was finally good enough. “That sounds lovely, Jack.”

He never says _no_ to Jack's suggestions, and gradually Jack becomes more daring. “Go outside,” he says once, and the Doctor just smiles and reminds him to wear a coat. One day, when smiles have become less rare, Jack grins and suggests, “Kiss Barney.”

With a surprised bark of laughter, the Doctor points out, “You'll have to ask him about that, Captain.” Jack freezes, grin falling away. The Doctor stares at him, eyes deep with pain.

“Jack,” he amends, gently. “What have I done to you?”

“Ruined my life,” Jack replies, with perfect sincerity and no hard feelings. Among many other things the Doctor has done to him; but there is a quote he has felt a deep resonance with, ever since he heard it long ago -

The Doctor swallows, looking stricken. Perhaps not his best choice for an answer, on second thought, even if it _is_ true. “When you were not talking,” he says, carefully, “when Barnable was gone. When you woke in the morning, where did you expect to be?”

“In the TARDIS,” Jack says, and the Doctor closes his eyes.

“Why don't you go see if Barnable will let you kiss him.” Jack, happy to take a good distraction, does. Barnable laughs at him, and smiles that smile that lights the world, and does.

-+-+-

Barnable finds the Doctor in the kitchen, slumped at the table dejectedly. “Yes,” he announces as Barnable steps in, “I was.”

“Was, what?” He still watches the Doctor carefully around Jack, still suspicious that he will hurt their Captain if he turns his back, although the accusation in his eyes has been slightly alleviated by the Doctor's painstaking care in bringing Jack back.

“Abusing him.”

There is a long silence, then the scrape of wood on stone floor as Barnable pulls back the chair next to the Doctor - so he won’t have to look at him, the Doctor fancies. “It’s not that simple. Is it.”

“No,” the Doctor admits, startled into a plain truth. “I _was_ ,” he insists.

“You were,” Barnable agrees, and the Doctor can’t think where they go from here, how there could be anything after that indictment; although he doesn’t seem finished speaking. “You’re right that I don’t understand everything going on here. I’m not sure I want to. You thought he needed it?”

He had said as much, rather forcefully, a number of times. “Yes.”

“You had reason to think so?”

The Doctor doesn't answer; he doesn't want absolution in any degree. If there was something he could have done _worse_ , he can't imagine it. Something had triggered a flashback for Jack, back to the time the Doctor held him prisoner in the TARDIS, and he had done just as he had then; taken Jack over, allowed him no independent action, hurt him without respite or relief. The hell he had been in was of the Doctor's making entirely. “I made bad assumptions, and I hurt him as no one else could. I can't fix this, Barnable. Of everything that could be wrong… this, I can't fix. I'm the one who broke him in the first place.”

“Mm,” Barnable says noncommittally. He can't outright disbelieve the statement, but he has far too much experience with the Doctor to believe what he says, either.

“Unfortunately, that is one of the truest statements I’ve ever made.” Head in his hands, he hasn’t dared look over at Barnable yet. He can’t bear to see the disappointment, the shattering loss of faith. On top of what he has done to Jack… he had meant never to let Barnable down. Failed that, as well. “I expect I've done what I can. I'm probably just re-traumatising him, at this point. Should leave. Can't, though… May I trade you bedrooms?” Jack shouldn't have to wake to his abuser's face.

“ _No._ ” Startled by his vehemence, the Doctor dares a glance at him. Brows raised, eyes wide, he doesn't look angry but rather incredulous - which is just as well, because even at forty six he has not mastered _stern_ or any variation thereof. “You’re not leaving him until he _says_ you should.”

“He _can’t_ , Barnable, that’s the _point_ ,” the Doctor says angrily, hiding his face again. He is surprised to feel Barnable tugging his hand away, slipping his warm fingers around, and resists at first.

“I won't trade, but I'll join you. If he wakes up to you I'll be there at his back.” He has those determined crinkles in his forehead that they have come to love and dread; time to decide how to give in gracefully.

The Doctor sighs and holds tight to the undeserved comfort of Barnable’s hand. “Always the stubborn ones. What do you know that I don’t?”

Shaking his head, Barnable says, “Nothing. But I know you promised not to abandon him.”

-+-+-+-

 


	20. Love's constant companion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: trauma, dissociation, mention of rape._   
>    
>  _The usual disclaimers for this sort of thing apply, of course: this is based in part on my own experience dealing with a trauma with an inescapable trigger, informed by other experience and resources I've read, and bent all out of shape to fit the characters. It should in no way be taken as advice or instruction, or as representative of others' experiences. Nonetheless, I hope you find some value in it._

Life snaps into focus with a strange intensity when Jack awakes between two familiar bodies, in the same place he has awoken nearly every time he has slept in the last thirty five years. The smell is right, the light is right; the echoes of his partners’ snores outline exactly the right shape of room. The _ceiling_ is right, for the first time in… he doesn’t know. Trauma and time sense don’t play nicely, for Jack.

Barnable lies stretched out on his belly at Jack’s left, left arm under his pillow, right tucked close against his chest; that shoulder never did regain a full range of motion. He isn't touching Jack, right at the edge of the mattress - he doesn't, on the occasion he shares their bed, not being used to it - but still Jack’s left side is much cozier than his right.

The Doctor lies conflicted. He usually sprawls over Jack, an arm over his chest or his right leg resting on Jack's, but now he faces away, back pressed to Jack's side, arms and legs piled uncomfortably, curled and misplaced as if he had begun the night trying not to touch Jack at all. Because - but he’s not ready to go down that path quite yet, so he defers it and attempts instead to make sense of his life.

It's a lost cause, of course, but worth a try.

Yesterday he had told the Doctor he ruined Jack's life, which is probably what lead to Barnable's inclusion in their bed. He hadn't _meant_ it like that; in the detached clarity of yesterday the question had lead him to a truth he has tried to hold private, for fear the Doctor will misunderstand. As he did, and it's probably Barnable's cool head to thank for it not being disastrous. Because -

Yesterday was easy to think about. Further back… is less so. Because -

He had thought himself back in the TARDIS, in a vague, confused sort of way, unable to reconcile the evidence of his senses with what he felt should be true. And he had told the Doctor that yesterday, as well.

Jack sits with that for a while, feeling Barnable's human heat beside him, counting his slow breaths. Only in his own mind. Only there. No mad god, no inescapable prison, no slow alienation chipping away at his soul. Stone and wood and smoke and snow and a planet turning beneath him, a bed he built with his own two hands and two people he loves with all his heart.

Before yesterday, Jack thinks cautiously, prodding the sore spot like a loose tooth, there were days very much _like_ yesterday. Before that… there were very anxious days, when the rules changed again. When the Doctor was kind again. When there were no more ropes on his wrists to comfort him. And before _that_ …

Before that, Jack can't make sense of yet. He strokes the bedspread, grounding himself in the lines of blue, the smoothness of tightly woven threads, the softly textured pattern of them. The faint smell of wool, rising from blankets warmed by their bodies. He wriggles his toes, his fingers, finding his edges; turns his ankles, shifts his knees, rubs his wrists, slowly mapping out the body that contains him, will always contain him, free now and beloved here, in a place he has chosen.

Before that, the Doctor was not kind. Jack accepts that, often welcomes it, but it had near to broken his heart this time, when comfort was all he wanted. And he wouldn’t even _mind_ if it had helped the Doctor, but - but it hadn’t seemed to. What started it, he doesn’t quite remember. What ended it - was Barnable, he thinks, and no resolution or catharsis, which will just fuel the Doctor’s distress. He has never been easy with that side of himself. But why did he let Barnable stop him? Careful to disturb neither of his partners, Jack shifts to his side, slips his left arm over the Doctor’s awkwardly curled form. The Doctor hums sleepily and presses back against him and for just an instant all is right with the world; then he startles, and jerks away. “Jack?” he asks, as he rolls to see him.

“Sorry,” Jack whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you. Come back?” He lifts his arm invitingly. The reluctance on the Doctor’s face confirms the fear he hadn’t wanted to confront; whatever the Doctor had needed of him, Jack had failed to provide it. “I’m sorry,” Jack says again, pulling his arm back, holding his wrist tight in his other hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help. We can - we can try again, if you want. Whatever you need, Doctor.”

His eyes have grown huge as Jack speaks, and at this he makes a terrible noise. “No,” he says, shaking his head, “no, I don’t - it wasn’t - I don’t need anything from you, Jack -” and then Jack makes a terrible noise as well and closes his eyes against that comprehensive rejection. Barnable lunges over him and captures the Doctor’s sleeve as he tries to make his escape.

Draped half over Jack, Barnable sighs. “ _Complicated_ doesn’t even begin to describe this situation, does it. Whatever you just thought, Captain, unthink it. He thought he was doing what _you_ needed.”

Feeling like a sandcastle after the tide, Jack buries his head in the pillows and waits for the pain to subside.

“See,” Barnable says, laying his head down on Jack’s shoulders. The mattress shifts as the Doctor settles back.

“Yes. Still -”

“I’m still quite angry with you, yes. And I hope I never _hear_ anyone’s heart break again for the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel like you two are speaking a different language, Doctor, but whatever it was you said, fix it. And later, when we’re all sensible, you can explain it to me. Both of you, one at a time.” He doesn’t sound as if he is looking forward to it.

Cool fingers slide through Jack’s hair, rest lightly against the back of his neck. “You have been what I need, Jack. You are.” But it’s no more believable than when he said it before, even if it must be true in some way. “Jack. Look at me.” Unwillingly Jack unburies his head in time to see the Doctor flinch back; Barnable has gone tense again. “It wasn’t an order,” he says wretchedly. “It wasn’t meant to be an order. I’m sorry. I can’t _fix_ this, Barnable!” Before Barnable can catch him again he flees the bed.

Barnable sighs and says, “I’ll salt his tea,” in that disconcertingly matter-of-fact way he makes threats and Jack chokes on a laugh. “Do you want me to get off you?” Still half trying to pretend he doesn’t exist, Jack shakes his head. “Alright. Whatever helps, love. I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

It’s not true, it never is, but it will do for now.

Deliberately sinking deeper into the mattress, Jack wills his mind to stillness; perhaps like a snowglobe the whirling confusion will settle if he stops shaking it. Barnable’s presence is comforting, weighing him down, holding him to the here and now. Jack tries very hard not to wish he were the Doctor. He shifts around every now and again, and finally asks, “Are you asleep?”

“I’m awake,” Jack says, muffled by the bed. “Thinking.”

“You can speak,” Barnable sighs, relaxing in tangible relief. “Oh, Captain, I was afraid he’d… broken you again.”

Jack laughs, not happily. “You haven’t seen _broken_ , bright eyes. Pray you never do. He’s put me back together from much worse.”

Barnable’s hand tightens on his shoulder. “Then why does he think he can’t fix you this time?”

“Because what went wrong here was… leftovers, from when he _broke_ me much worse than this. I need… I need to think, but it’s not coming easy right now. Tell me what it looked like, to you. The last… how long?” Barnable pulls away slightly, and Jack adds, “ _Please_. An outline, at least. My memory tends to go nonlinear in these cases and it helps to sort it back into order.”

“Does this happen often, then?” His voice is high and tight. Jack pulls his head from the pillows and rolls carefully to his side, shifting Barnable around until he lies pillowed on Jack’s arm.

“Live long enough, you see a lot of things,” Jack points out, with no intention of elaborating. “The specifics are always new, but you start noticing patterns after a while. The way it feels, the way through. Go on, Barney.”

Looking away, he says quietly, “I shouldn’t have left.” Ah. Guilt, love’s constant companion.

“You weren’t to know. I should have said something. Please?”

Slowly Barnable draws him a picture of himself, confused and sad and silent, and the Doctor, increasingly upset and frustrated - and Barnable, unable to look away, trying to understand. He had gone for three days, and found Jack already deeply silent on his return but still recognisably _Jack_ ; another three days and any reassurance of the sort had disappeared utterly.

“You barely knew me anymore. You followed him like - like a _dog_ , looked up every time he walked into the room, no matter…” He seems unable to decide between anger and a pitying kind of despair. "No matter what he did to you. And after all that you went to _him_ for comfort, not me. You didn't want me, even when… even when he didn't. Didn’t want you.”

 _Didn’t want me_. Jack had been fine until that, really - Barnable such a comforting weight in his arms, the smell of his hair familiar and real - but suddenly he finds himself laid open to the core again, fighting not to run away from it all.

He must have spoken aloud, or given some sign; Barnable turns in his arms, grips his shirt tightly to shake him. “ _I_ want you,” he says fiercely. “ _I_ want you, Captain, and don’t you give up on me now, I’m not him but I’m _me_ and you told me that’s what matters.”

It is right, and true, but in the circumstances… not quite enough. “Yes,” Jack says anyway, holding him tight; probably much tighter than he would prefer. “That’s what matters.”

-+-+-

The _thump_ of a mug on the table jolts the Doctor’s head up to see Jack settling into the chair across from him. “You need to quit running away.”

 _I’m not running away_ , he tries to say reflexively, which is a mistake: what comes out of his mouth is, “I’ve been running away all my life, Captain, I’m hardly going to stop now. Maybe you need to quit following me.” And then he has to run away again, because the pain and betrayal in Jack’s eyes is -

Is far too familiar. And then he’ll be dead again, pale and still against the grassy red coverlet, the TARDIS urging him away, away and he won’t even _care_ -

The Doctor stumbles to his feet, abandons his tea, and flees. Jack stares after him, hand white-knuckled around Barnable’s where it rests on his shoulder, more fragile in that instant than his Captain should ever be. It hadn’t left this kind of scar, he had thought; had convinced himself, in all that long trek into Jack’s future, that there was no permanent damage done. Yet here it lingers, wounds still bleeding, open to his careless hands. Jack has no defences against the Doctor, and the Doctor can’t seem to stop himself from taking advantage.

In a slow, quiet pursuit through the tower, the Doctor moves from room to room and Jack eventually follows, Barnable in tow like a human security blanket. Jack watches him shrewdly; the Doctor tries to pretend he has Things To Do. As he might do, if he weren’t always moving elsewhere to escape. It lasts until he fails to lever himself up from the sofa quickly enough and Jack drops down beside him with a sigh of relief, captures his hand firmly. “Caught you,” he says, very quietly. “I’m not going to stop following you, Doctor, not unless you get a lot more convincing.”

Resisting a return to that deeply comforting stability is far beyond the Doctor’s ability at the moment. He sags back into the cushions, lays his head against his Captain’s shoulder, and tries not to let the tightness in his throat come out as tears. How _everything he's done_ could be unconvincing, he doesn't know. "I keep hurting you."

"Yeah, you do. And if you'd ever _listen_ to me, maybe you'd figure out why." The ancient, exhausted bitterness in his voice is shocking.

"What do you want, Jack? You never let me apologise."

"I want _you_." He sounds surprised; caught by the truth field himself, perhaps. But the Doctor has never claimed to want truth from him, always far too dangerous between them. "I want you," Jack repeats in a much gentler voice. "Everything you are."

Willing or no, the tears do come then.

"I don't understand," Barnable whispers, from Jack's other side.

"That's alright," Jack says, and _that_ the Doctor can agree with wholeheartedly. "He doesn't either. You didn’t do anything wrong, Doctor.”

Mouth open, the Doctor twists away from him in shock, turns to argue -

“Oh, yes, he did!” Barnable insists, before he can. Perched on the edge of the couch in an identical position on Jack’s other side, he glares fiercely at both of them.

Jack’s face goes blank and he swallows sickly, closes his eyes. “Please don’t do that,” he says faintly, after swallowing again. Horrified, the Doctor glances over to Barnable’s pale face and they both silently, gingerly, return to their places at Jack’s shoulders. No one says anything for another three minutes.

Finally the Doctor can’t stand it anymore. _I want you to leave_ , he tries to say: the least true thing he can think of. What he says is, “I’m trying to lie because I think the truth field is broken.” Only belatedly does it occur to him the rather uncomfortable situation he would be in if he _had_ been able to voice that untruth.

Jack eyes him askance, that eyebrow rising. The Doctor can feel his face heat. “Love that guilt, don’t you. Keeps you warm at night?” Then he looks away, briefly stricken. "In some ways, you know, I'd rather you _had_ been doing it just because you wanted to. It broke my heart to know I was failing you," the Doctor makes a protesting noise here, but Jack ignores him, "but at least you… at least I… I _want_ to be the one you show that side of yourself to. We both know it's there. And we both know I bring it out in you. Sometimes you need something you don't have to feel guilty for destroying. Whatever state I'm in, before or during or after, I want it.”

Staring fixedly at his hand in Jack's, the Doctor breathes carefully - and doesn't pretend to misunderstand. Jack is making statements about his essential characteristics, not a preference of the moment; the Doctor might equivalently say _I want to find out what's going on_. Any time. In any circumstance. He might regret having done so, occasionally, but it won't change his decision next time.

It won't change Jack's decision, next time. He’s seen so.

He hesitates, but can't resist asking. “Only in some ways?”

Squeezing his hand, Jack says dryly, “Well, the first couple days were a terrifying mindfuck, half-thinking I was back in the worst of it and you so sweetly caring as you broke me down. You didn't pretend to be trying to _help_ me, the first time through. I'm glad to find that was not intentional. I want _you_ , not the Master.”

Some strange sound, part laugh, part sob, tears its way out of the Doctor's throat. After all of it, all the destruction he has left behind him, after everything he has done to Jack, here at the end of it all there is something so very, very reassuring about the idea that there might truly be something essentially _different_ there, between himself and the Master. He stuffs his hand in his mouth lest the noise become hysterical laughter.

Jack only wants to be broken the way the _Doctor_ does it.

Still, it doesn’t take long to spot the flaw. “That’s all well and good, Jack,” he says, once speaking seems safe again, “but it _wasn’t_ because I wanted it. And it wasn’t because you wanted it, either - and that _matters_ , Jack,” he adds quickly, scrambling to his feet and staring down at two pale faces, Barnable’s grey eyes wide and bright with reflected light, Jack’s blue eyes wary and reserved. “You can’t tell me it doesn’t matter.”

“No, and I’m sorry. It’s my fault it went wrong -”

“It can’t be your fault, I as good as raped you again.”

“You didn’t rape me, fuck, I’m so sick of this argument -” He _is_ looking sick.

“ _Again?_ ” Barnable asks, voice strained.

“Words have _meanings_ , Jack, you can’t just redefine them to suit!”

“Of course not, only the Doctor gets to do that.”

“You have such a low opinion of me, I don’t see why you’re having trouble believing -”

Flinging himself to his feet, Jack roars, “You’re a fucking telepath, you damn well know when you rape me and this wasn’t it!”

All that fire is glorious in rage; the Doctor wants to touch, wants to burn with him - wants to cringe in terror - wants to stoke the flame higher for the blinding beauty of it. Standing very still, he says, “There, you admit it. You finally admit I raped you.” The conversation has gone far beyond recent weeks.

Mouth open, Jack pauses, eyes flickering to Barnable still sitting paralysed on the sofa. Then he takes a breath and steps toward the Doctor with obvious effort. “I wish you had,” he says deliberately, centimetres from his face. “At least then one of us would have enjoyed it.”

“I did enjoy it,” the Doctor finds himself saying - and then he has to run away again.

-+-+-+-

 


	21. A good man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I should also probably add a disclaimer that this is not necessarily an example of a good or healthy relationship? That's probably been obvious all the way through. They have unusual circumstances and needs, and they try, and they love each other as best they can, but still._

Jerked out of thoughtlessness by the sound of something hitting the wall in the other room, Jack is on his feet before he realises it, nearly spilling the cold tea sat in front of him on the table. Footsteps cross the room and Barnable's voice follows and Jack can't move. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Barnable is saying, nearly in tears, and Jack has to go - he can't stand there frozen in the face of that misery. Heart pounding, Jack forces his feet to move and leaves the kitchen.

Barnable is knelt on the floor cradling a book to his chest, still apologising. "What happened?" Jack asks, uncertain whether to be relieved or not.

Grey eyes peer up into his, red-rimmed. "I threw it. I hurt it, Captain -" He lowers his arms, showing a finely leather bound book, corner dented, pages laying askew in the middle. Jack catches his breath as he recognises he first printing edition of the book of stories about the Doctor that Barnable so loves; he had been in raptures when he found it in the tower's bookshelves, untouched by any hand in the century since it was bound. For a man who treats even the plainest object as though it might have feelings to hurt, to have _thrown_ a beloved book… "I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I startled you -" He closes his eyes, swallows tightly, and repeats in a very small, disbelieving voice, "I _threw_ it."

Jack's brain is slow to restart, but as threats continue to fail to materialise, he begins to feel other emotions than panic. He kneels beside Barnable, draws him and the book into his arms. "Why?"

"Because I hate him!" Barnable cries; then he freezes. "I don't hate him," he whispers, and Jack laughs even though it's not funny.

"It's complicated."

"I hate that we have to take care of _him_ when it’s him that hurt you."

Holding tighter, Jack points out, "You don't have to."

"If you think -" Barnable pulls away slightly so he is not muffled by Jack's shirt. "If you think for one moment I'm going to _leave you with him_ again -" Beginning to feel nauseated, breaths shallow, Jack holds on even tighter. He can't help it. Yesterday was hard, and the Doctor not coming back for the night only made it worse. He doesn’t run from Jack anymore, much, or at least not far; but nothing can stop him running from himself. Or, for that matter, grant him success in the endeavour.

Carefully, Barnable frees an arm and reaches up to stroke his face. "I'm sorry, love, I forget. Come sit with me? Whenever you feel like you can let go a bit. No hurry."

Jack closes his eyes and breathes. Just that; for how long he doesn't know. "Alright," he murmurs, finally, into Barnable's hair; helps him up and follows him to the sofa, tucks himself in at his side, safe and secure. "But you shouldn't stay if it's hurting you. Doubt he'll look me in the eyes for a month, much less touch me. Nothing to worry about." He can't keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"You _want_ him to? After that?"

"Pathetic, isn't it."

Declining to answer, Barnable tightens his arm around Jack. "I think, Captain, if there's one thing I know for sure… it's that I don't know what's going on. I shouldn't presume to judge."

"But you are," Jack points out mildly.

"Something that does this to you… I can't see it not being wrong. I'm sorry."

"Some _one_?"

"Maybe," Barnable allows, on a reluctant breath.

Hoping it might go some way toward mending the unwelcome rift between his partners, Jack insists, "He hasn't done anything to me I haven't agreed to, and he never will."

Barnable is silent for a moment, then makes a despairing noise. "Captain, that doesn't make _sense_." Not feeling up to arguing nor attempting to explain further, Jack just pulls his feet up, insinuates himself more across than into Barnable’s lap, and wonders whether the Doctor will come home on his own or whether Jack will have to flush him from wherever he's gone to ground.

-+-+-

“Doctor! Get out here, you coward!”

The Doctor scowls irritably and rolls toward the wall. “I told you not to let him in.” The TARDIS is unapologetic. The tiny stone room is less of a comfort now than it had been in his younger days; more claustrophobic, more confining, and he has had little need to hide from either himself or Jack in a very long time. Gone and stuck his foot back in it again now, of course. It’s a strange sort of relief, to finally have the blazing row they have been putting off for thirty five years. If only it weren’t about… this.

He sighs, gets up, straightens his bowtie, tugs at his coat, and trudges to the console room. “I’m here, Jack.”

As he climbs the stairs, Jack watching him expressionlessly, the Doctor wonders if he even remembers back so far as the first time they played out this scene; Jack in desperate need, the Doctor fleeing the shadow of certain death. Have they lived so long they have run out of new ways to hurt each other, stuck retreading old pains again and again? When he has finally done with running, perhaps Jack will be free to hitch his life to a less troubled star.

Still, they have to get through the day first.

“Still a damned coward,” Jack says, surprisingly mildly; with a little more warmth the Doctor might call it _fond_. And that’s that question answered. “Ready to knock the dirt off your boots and fly away?”

“ _No_ ,” the Doctor denies, shocked that Jack would think it of him - but of course it wasn’t Jack thinking so. Heartsick, the Doctor looks around, but Jack is alone. “He doesn’t really think I’d - he can’t believe I would just - _leave_.”

“He doesn’t know what to think, right now.” Dropping the expressionless mask, Jack sighs unhappily. Perhaps they aren't having a blazing row after all. “He’s not the little boy who would follow you anywhere anymore, Doctor, he’s -”

“A good man,” the Doctor suggests, and Jack nods, understanding him perfectly; what neither of them are. The Doctor has tried, here on Trenzalore, but the past is never far enough - and he has been many things with Jack, but rarely _good_. It was bound to spill over eventually. But why not a few more years, why couldn’t they have kept it from the man who makes them both better simply by expecting them to be? Perhaps this darkness will be too much for a good man to accept, perhaps he will leave; and if he goes, will Jack? Surely so, if Barnable would still have him, and then - for a moment all the Doctor can see are the lonely years ahead, the tower filled with nothing but empty echoes of long-lost joy, the love he has lived immersed in gone to an untimely end. Leaning on the console, he closes his eyes, tries to find some comfort in the TARDIS’s quiet hum. She will be with him to the last, only her; his constant companion, the third heart in his chest. “I wish -”

“I wish a lot of things,” Jack says; the Doctor flinches, remembering yesterday’s wish. “Doesn’t do me much good.”

“You don’t really wish -” the Doctor says faintly, surprised the words even make it out of his mouth.

There is the sound of Jack throwing himself into a chair. “Suppose we had better do this here, Barney’s upset enough… Yes, I do. We’ve _just done_ the thing where neither of us enjoys it, Doctor, because I don't think you were talking about recent history." His own terrible truth, and Jack is right, of course. He hadn't enjoyed it _this_ time, after the first few hours. "How is that better? That should never have happened. One of us has to want it, need it, or it’s just… it’s just mutual abuse. And I may be a kinky bastard but that doesn’t tick any boxes for me, especially when it’s you. Hurting you is, it’s not,” he pauses, stressed breathing audible. “I’m glad you don’t need me to,” he says finally, and the Doctor stares at his hands, horrified anew at what he has asked of this man; has yet to ask of him. “And it’s killing me that I let it happen. Because it did hurt you. Failed you again, just the same…”

Appalled, the Doctor whirls to face his Captain. “It wasn’t your fault, Jack, it _wasn’t_.” But it doesn’t help, Jack’s face a mask of misery, and before he can think about it he is settling himself over Jack’s lap, forearms braced on his chest, hands cradling his head. “Nothing you do can fail me,” he says fiercely. “My Captain.”

Closing eyes that have seen too much, Jack whispers, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“You never have,” the Doctor insists, but he closes his eyes as well and lays his forehead against his guiding light. “You never will.”

“Who’s making promises now?”

“To my knowledge,” he clarifies, with an exhalation that might have been a laugh in better circumstances.

“Then _why_ -” Jack pushes him away, but only a little bit, hands holding fast to his coat. "I've thought, there must be something… why you don't rely on me anymore. You're always looking for someone… else, someone I don't quite measure up to." His Jack-on-Bellacosa, not so far in the future anymore; left there awaiting a return that will never come, now. Had he even said goodbye, last time? Had he said anything that mattered at all, had he given anything, or only asked more and more? He can't remember. A choked noise of distress escapes the Jack of the here and now. "Like that," he says, and looks away; but he can’t hide anything at this distance, inches between their faces and no distance at all between their skin. "I'm - I'm sorry for your loss, I don't mean to -"

Jack tries to push the Doctor off his lap but he won't go. "It's not like that, Jack, it's _really_ not, _please_ -" He clings resolutely. "I _do_ rely on you."

"Not like you did, for a little while," Jack says, shaking his head; but he stops pushing, wraps his arms tentatively around the Doctor, which is much better. His pulse flutters fast under the Doctor's hands, the fever heat of him more feverish than normal, and the Doctor holds him close and safe, as safe as they ever are together. He can’t think of any better answer he would dare voice. "Come home," Jack says after a long silence, and the Doctor nods.

-+-+-

There is nothing quite like careful examination, Jack has found, to expose the faultlines left in his mind by trauma. He can't stand ticking time bombs in his head; it isn't as though he will ever run out of opportunities for them to suddenly kneecap him. But as with anything else, overexposure wears away the edges and makes maps of territories just a little too raw to tread on. He can see the traces of it now, the way he has held far too tight to the Doctor, the way the world shatters like broken glass, brittle and sharp, when the Doctor is in danger. The way his heart turns to stone and freefalls when the Doctor seems to reject him. The way nothing is quite right, and the distance between them is never quite closed, and he can never trust quite enough.

The way the Doctor can never quite trust him, and the way he has run from that knowledge every day of his life here, every day trying to be better; but as much as he had hoped for another chance to earn that trust back, now that he has stumbled into one it is clear there was a very good reason not to offer it. As willing as the Doctor is to forgive him, it can’t excuse him from fixing the problem. And to do that, he needs the Doctor patched up well enough to help him through it, because the memories simply aren’t there.

When they arrive back at the tower, Barnable is not there with a welcoming smile, or even a forbidding glare. He is not there making supper, and he is not there tinkering in the back corner, and he is not there reading by the fire. The Doctor looks devastated, shoulders drooping as he stands still watching the flames shift. “I thought it might be too much,” he says, rough and hopeless.

He doesn’t wear hopeless well; he oughtn’t wear it at all. “He’s just upstairs,” Jack murmurs, believing it fully without proof, as he winds his arms about the Doctor’s waist, pulls until he can feel the spare solidity of his lover against him from knees all the way up to where he presses his lips against the base of the Doctor’s neck. “Weaving, belike. You know he’s not the sort to disappear into the night.”

The Doctor flinches - not _away_ , which is a relief - but all he says is, “You’ve gone native.”

“You should talk,” Jack replies, tugging at the Doctor’s leather braces. “Why don’t you go make some tea, I’ll see if he’ll come down.”

To Jack’s relief, he does find Barnable upstairs. Sat at his loom with an angry tenseness to his shoulders, he wields the beater bar with a great deal more force than necessary.

“Alright, love?” Jack asks from the doorway. Barnable shrugs. “Come down for tea?”

“Better not,” Barnable says, shoulders falling. “He’s alright? _You’re_ alright?”

“Good enough to be getting on with. Just… needed to make sure you were still here.”

Pausing in his work, Barnable twists to give him a look of consternation. “You did? Or - for him.” Accustomed to the Doctor’s occasional excesses of mood, his expression clears into something vaguely irritated, vaguely sorrowful. “Yes, I’m still here. I’ll be down later. Just need… a little time.” Jack smiles, and leaves him to it.

At bedtime that evening Barnable glares defiantly at the both of them as he again takes over what has temporarily become his side of the bed. When Jack climbs in without argument he aims the full force of his improving glare at the Doctor, who hangs back looking uncharacteristically hesitant at this display of protectiveness.

Right hand rubbing over his left nervously, the Doctor suggests, "I can sleep upstairs - if you don't mind, I mean - I'll just." He turns, but looks back when Jack snorts.

Pulling Barnable into his arms, Jack shakes his head. "Alright, Barney, you've got a Time Lord on the run - well, maybe that's nothing special with this one, but still. Knock it off. He didn't want you to _leave_ , Doctor, or why do you think he was glaring at me too? He just doesn't want you to tell _him_ to leave."

"I wouldn't," the Doctor says, taken aback.

“Good. Come to bed, then.” Bad enough he hadn’t come home last night; Jack has no intention of letting him get away for another.

"I'm still mad at you," Barnable says, dagger thrown across the bulwark that is Jack’s chest, and Jack shivers.

"Tomorrow," he says, "argue tomorrow," and holds them both close in the darkness.

-+-+-+-

 


	22. The only thing to do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: discussion of trauma, brief but graphic mention of rape right at the end of the chapter._

“Upstairs,” the Doctor tells himself sternly when no one greets him again. “They’re just upstairs.” He can _feel_ that Jack is upstairs, and Barnable presumably with him; he has been remarkably patient with them, undeservedly civil to the Doctor, unusually willing to let Jack cling to him. Unable to settle his mind to any task, the Doctor wanders the tower, room to room, poking at half-finished projects, straightening piles of books without ever getting so far as to put anything away. Eventually he finds himself staring into the light of the crack in the universe. He prods it with his cane. “What good are you,” he says wearily, unable to summon anger. “I lose everything, again and again, and there you are, just waiting. What _good_ are you?” With a final poke, he turns his back on it only to find Barnable standing there; he reaches out to steady the Doctor as he startles.

“Sorry,” he says. “Come sit, Doctor.” Jack is already settling himself in the middle of the sofa, dark as a lurking shadow today. He can’t come this close to the crack in the universe; it gives the Doctor a raging headache if he gets within three metres. Barnable seats himself to Jack’s left, making a study in contrast with his light green trousers and an overshirt nearly the same color as his hair. The Doctor remains standing.

“You said,” he says finally, stomach in knots but needing an answer, “I ruined your life.”

Jack stretches a hand up to him, wry half-smile softening his face. “And you can’t square that with doing nothing wrong?” The Doctor shakes his head, but, after a moment, takes Jack’s hand and allows himself to be pulled down. “Sometimes,” Jack says softly, breath stirring his hair, “you find words so true, they become inscribed on your soul. There was a poet, Doctor, of nineteenth century Earth by the name of Oscar Wilde. You may have met him. He wrote, about a man he adored, ‘He has ruined my life, so I can't help loving him - it is the only thing to do.’” Holding the Doctor's left hand tightly, he raises it to his lips and kisses it. “It is the only thing to do, Doctor. It always has been.”

“ _Jack_ ,” the Doctor breathes painfully, leaning against him. It hadn't been the indictment he had heard it as, then - but neither was it anything he would wish for Jack to feel such kinship with.

“It's alright. We're not _easy_ , Doctor. I’m sorry it hurt you, when I said it. I wasn’t… at my best.”

“I don’t want that to happen again.”

Barnable leans forward, the better to frown at him disapprovingly. "That should be fairly trivial to accomplish."

“Yes,” the Doctor agrees, eyeing Barnable cautiously. “Jack, I think -”

“I thought you were going to argue with each other, not gang up on me,” Jack says, trying to make it sound like a joke; but he is tense and trembling, breaths far too controlled.

“He shouldn’t do that to you,” Barnable insists. “It’s wrong.”

“It’s really not.”

“I was _here_. He tied you up and he hurt you and you were… gone. It wasn’t you, looking out at me from behind your eyes.”

“I need that sometimes. I need that _from him_. This is how it is, between us, this is how it's always been. I need him in control. Any other time, it would have helped. Don't ask me to give it up.” His arm is very, very tight around the Doctor’s shoulders, and the Doctor says nothing at all, hoping to reduce his lover's distress. “We’re not going to tiptoe around this. We’re not going to wait and see if it gets better, because it _hasn’t_. Doctor, we're going to have to talk about it.”

A cold fist squeezes the Doctor’s ribs. “I don't -”

“Nope. We’ve tried _you deal with yours, I’ll deal with mine_ , and here we are. I think we’re going to have to do it together, this time.” He hasn’t let go Barnable’s hand, either, and the Doctor glances at it warily.

“But -”

“We’d have imploded again already if not for him. I _need_ this, Doctor, I need you to help me, because you are the _only person_ who can tell me what happened.” The Doctor manages to keep a very undignified whimper unvoiced, but held so close he can’t hide the hammering of his heart. Jack loosens his arm but doesn’t quite let go. “What are you afraid of?”

They're not meant to _ask_ each other such questions here -! It is only by virtue of so many answers trying to escape at once that he manages not to make an utter fool of himself. Like a mouthful of angry alphabet soup he can feel them seething; he stuffs his free hand in his mouth with a terrible hiccuping laugh. Barnable looks quite alarmed, but Jack just watches, clear-eyed.

Finally one escapes. "You'll go," the Doctor says wretchedly, and then can't go on. Part of him wants to beg them both not to, not to leave him alone in the cold stillness of this place, alone to become unmoored from time again - but he can't even follow that thought far enough to make it into a coherent sentence without quailing in terror. Any reassurance Jack could provide would be hollow in the face of that inevitable end.

Jack, as usual, hears more than the Doctor says. "If I did, I would come back," he says, and against all the Doctor's expectations it _is_ reassuring; still a promise, but one bounded in scope. _Your fear is real_ , Jack says, _but this will not be the thing that breaks us_.

"I wouldn't -" Barnable says, but Jack cuts him off.

"No promises, Barney." He tightens his arm gently around the Doctor. "It's not a good story. If you need to go, you go."

"But -"

"Or go now," Jack says, letting his voice go a little harder. Pathetically grateful that someone else is having this conversation, the Doctor leans a little closer to his Captain.

After a pause, Barnable ventures, "It's that bad?"

A bark of unhappy laughter escapes Jack. "It starts with him killing me, and gets worse from there."

"He _what?_ " Barnable squeaks, and then he is on his feet staring down at them both, eyes wide, leaning away like he's waiting for his legs to catch up. "He _what?_ "

Jack recoils slightly, as if he hadn’t expected quite that reaction. Cautiously, he offers, “Maybe it starts a little before that?”

“Maybe!” Barnable laughs incredulously. “Does it? Or did he just walk up to you and - and kill you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Breathing heavily, expression frozen, Barnable stares at Jack for a long moment; he glances at the Doctor, then back at Jack. “That's not the part that bothers you.”

Jack shakes his head. “It did, of course, especially when it kept happening. But -” he pauses at Barnable's sick moan.

"We should -" the Doctor says quietly, hiding his face, "maybe we should… wait."

"What, until he's -" Jack, thankfully, cuts himself off. "Fuck. No. I'm not having that conversation. I need this _fixed_ , Doctor, I am _not okay_. Barney -" The sofa shakes as Barnable throws himself back onto it with surprising force.

"No, no, now I need to know how a story that begins with, _my lover killed me, and then killed me again_ , ends up with you… here. Falling from the sky to get to him. Still madly in love. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

The Doctor peers hesitantly around Jack's shoulder; Barnable is looking stubborn again, but soon enough he'll look horrified, all the hatred and condemnation that Jack will never give him burning from hardened grey eyes. There was a time he had sought that out, had come broken to Jack and he had provided the harsh words and pain the Doctor had needed; but he doesn’t want that now. This Jack hasn’t done that yet - but what if this is where he learns _how?_

There’s a pressure rising in his head, in his throat, blurring his vision. He’s going to cry, right here on the sofa, he’s going to be _sick_. Hand in his mouth, he’s chewing on his fingers again. “But you -”

“Have a completely unexpected and incapacitating post-traumatic reaction that I need to get rid of. And _you_ -” Jack reaches up, brushes the Doctor’s face with searing fingertips. “You’ve got a bit of work to do too, Doctor.”

“What’s the _point?_ ” His voice cracks and he turns away to hide the tears. What’s the point, when it will all be over soon enough? The little family they’ve made with Barnable; this life together here; his life in its entirety. All drawing to a close.

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Jack sounds upset now too, and he didn’t want to upset Jack -! “You’re alive, Doctor, and there’s tomorrow, and the _point_ is making tomorrow _better_.”

Hard work, for little benefit. But then Jack has so many, many tomorrows. “I'm not sure I'm -” _qualified;_ or maybe he means _worthy._

“You pulled me back.”

Exhaling painfully, the Doctor presses his face into the warmth of his Captain’s shoulder again. “Always,” he whispers, then again, more confident when the truth field has no impact, “always. Still, I pushed you too far.” Sitting away from Jack again, he can see Barnable pressed against his other shoulder, taking his turn at silence. He may not approve, but he is clearly determined to help.

“Doesn't matter,” Jack says. “Just, please, don't leave me alone when we're… going through it.” Then he aims a finger at the Doctor. “ _You_ are thinking, _better alone than with your abuser_.” Caught, the Doctor nods incrementally. “No. You believe what I say about me, and I believe what you say about you, and we both _tell the truth_ , or this doesn't work.”

His fingers have made their way back to his mouth; he chews on them absently. “For you. I'll try.” He sighs, and offers, “I'll need to be alone, sometimes.”

“I know. That's why this has never worked before.” Jack shoots Barnable a bright smile, nudges him. “That's what this lovely fellow is for.”

“But…” The Doctor leans against him again, looking past him to silent Barnable; he has repossessed Jack's left hand, looking relieved. “Why do you get all the comforting?”

Jack smirks. “Because he loves me better.”

Barnable snorts, shoving him with his shoulder. “Have you _tried_ getting him to let go of something he wants? Like the jaws of a peakhound.”

“Mm. Point taken,” the Doctor agrees, leaning more heavily on Jack.

“I'm willing to share,” Jack declares magnanimously, holding the Doctor tight. Barnable's eyebrows rise perilously. “Erm. I'm eternally grateful for the comfort, love, please don't go?”

Grey eyes roll in mock exasperation. “Don't overdo it. I'll sit in the middle.”

-+-+-

They don’t get very far, the first day. “This is worse, the way he tells it,” Barnable complains, still sitting between them but holding his head in his hands. Worse than Jack’s flippant summary, _pretty much just walked up and killed me_.

“I hadn't heard his side of it before,” Jack points out. “I didn’t know… I remember you said, Doctor, you thought it was probably this or avoiding me forever. I didn’t really understand why. But maybe I do, now.” The Doctor nods wretchedly, and Jack reaches across Barnable to catch his hand in comfort. “Hey. It’s alright.”

“It’s _not_ alright,” Barnable says, aghast. “It’s not alright for someone to do that to you, love.”

Jack chuckles, but when he gets two identical dire glares in return, his dismissive grin becomes an act of will; the pit of his stomach churns anxiously and his vision darkens at the edges and he very nearly loses focus on the here and now. Not him, he reminds himself, _that_ is the trauma, and not him. “I’m not saying… I don’t think it was _right_ , or good, or healthy for either of us. I think it _happened_ , for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest was that I followed along willingly.”

“I made you a prisoner, Jack. Trapped by a madman in the most secure prison in the universe.” The Doctor is shaking his head but Jack is _so tired_ of being told he is wrong about his own experience.

Sitting forward to the edge of the sofa, Jack turns to face his partners and eyes the Doctor sternly; to his surprise the Doctor edges back, chin lifted defensively. “I was no more a prisoner there, Doctor, than you are here.”

Face draining of colour precipitously, the Doctor stares at him transfixed. “Is that how you see it? A matter of, of fate? Of responsibility?”

Jack nods. “Of need, and ability. Forever is a long time, Doctor. It's a long time to be without you, and set against that, what does it matter how we spend the time? I thought. But it turns out it does matter. Because it hurt you. I was wrong. You were wrong. It was a team effort. Listen to me this time, Doctor, _see me_. What we did wrong, we put right. And so. It’s _alright_.” He watches the Doctor, willing him to understand, _finally_ , until a tiny noise draws his attention away. Trapped between them, Barnable is sat hunched and frozen. “Barney?”

Barnable swallows and doesn't look up as he says in a very level voice, “You're so good at pretending to be human.”

Jack devotes the rest of the day to convincing Barnable he is human _enough_.

-+-+-

As much a prisoner as the Doctor is here? Of course Jack imagines the Doctor to have a future beyond Trenzalore, this long stand a simple stop along the journey's way instead of a slow drift to its end. Nonetheless, that may only make Jack's words more apt than he knows. The Doctor is most assuredly trapped here, as Jack was by him in the TARDIS; but he has never considered that the _reason_ he stays. He owes Jack that same dignity.

Feeling very far away, the Doctor watches as Jack does his best to help Barnable set aside his glimpse of the immortal flame inside the human skin. Not a new problem, the Doctor supposes; Jack seems to know what he is doing. Barnable knows what Jack is doing as well, but he seems willing enough to be convinced. Always a shock when that vast sense of _presence_ unfurls, the authority of his years that he keeps such a close hold on most of the time that one forgets. Even the Doctor forgets. Foolish of him, to have imagined his Jack of the future, Jack-on-Bellacosa, lost to him. Jack is always growing into his future.

After Barnable goes to bed upstairs, in search of restful sleep in an unshared bed, Jack’s enthusiastic humanity dies down. He makes tea and brings a cup to the Doctor where he is tucked away in the furthest corner of his workroom, and sits down silently nearby. The Doctor watches from the corner of his eye. That insecurity has returned, that strange vulnerability that appears whenever he feels untrusted.

Tea emptied, Jack cradles the still-warm cup in his hands. “Do you see, now?” The words drop into the silence between them like unexpected rain, charging the air. "I couldn't stop you, then; but I should have stopped you now, or what was the point of all those deaths, all that pain? How else could it be worth it, unless it taught me to be what you need? We're not easy, Doctor, and we don't ask easy things of each other, but it works fine as long as - as long as it doesn't short circuit at the outset. And caught up in memory like that, I couldn’t… I forgot that sometimes what you need most is someone to stop you."

Feeling like an anvil, like a bell, rung by unexpected truth, the Doctor has no argument left in him. "Yes," he admits. "Barnable did. Of course I should have given up much sooner, but some things… tying your wrists seemed to help. Pain seemed to, to settle you. But it was just making the memories more real, wasn't it? Because it was me."

Jack nods sharply, head still bowed. "I'm glad he did. You were so sad, and I…" He waves his hand dismissively - which is completely the wrong order of importance - and visibly changes course. "But it should never have come to that. Involving Barney… it’s going to hurt him.”

“Why, then?” Jack was the one insisting on his inclusion.

“He deserves a choice. And answers, if he wants them. And I think we need him.”

“It’s going to hurt _you_ ,” the Doctor points out gently.

“It’s going to _fix_ me. But yes, I deserve a choice, too.” He eyes the Doctor pointedly. Twitching his shoulders in unhappy concession, the Doctor finishes his tea, sets the cup down carefully. “You still call me your Captain,” Jack says, very quietly, “but you don’t mean it like that.”

 _My hand at the wheel,_ he had said once. _My guiding voice, my light in the dark, my port in the storm._ Still all those things; but when the Doctor closes his eyes, he sees Jack's face lit by the light of a far away sun. The Doctor swallows around the lump in his throat, takes a slow breath. “I _will_ tell you,” he says, “Someday. I promise. But let me tell you everything else, before that.”

“Everything -?” Taken aback, Jack stares at him for a long moment, then nods gravely, captures his hand and kisses it, and asks no more.

-+-+-

Over the next week a strange, punctuated sort of silence falls over the household as the Doctor continues, as best he can remember it, the story of the years Jack spent mostly dead. Mornings are quiet, each of them carving out their own space even if Jack prefers to be within reach of one or the other of his partners as much as possible. The Doctor goes out to teach the children, and Barnable settles in at his loom upstairs, and Jack, for the most part, does not try to force any order on his thoughts. He reads or watches Barnable or wanders the tower or does nothing at all; he makes their lunch and sets some aside for the Doctor’s tea. Their mismatched eating schedules seems to have been the spark that lit this conflagration, but Jack hasn’t the wherewithal to attempt a solution just yet. And then the Doctor returns, and speaks until it is too much for one day, and then a different sort of silence falls: a precarious sort, a waiting-to-be-broken sort. Sometimes it is a question, or clarification, but more often it is _we need more eggs_ or _laundry tomorrow_ or _please don’t pace right there, Jack, it’s terribly distracting_ , and the evening is given over to errands and pretending life is quite entirely normal.

But Jack doesn’t leave the tower. In the grip of memory, it feels safer to stay in one place.

As the story unfolds Jack listens in fascination, and Barnable in something more akin to fascinated horror; the Doctor is many things, here on Trenzalore, but not a god, mad or otherwise. It is the first time Jack has had a coherent, linear view of the time he saw only short pieces of, and that alone is remarkably helpful in setting things to rights in his mind. He occasionally adds his own view of incidents the Doctor recalls, but for what turns out to be _years_ after the first death his memories are fairly sparse; sometimes he offers one only to be told it had happened months or years earlier or later. “Although,” the Doctor says quietly, “during the worst times, the busiest times, you might not have lived a day of hours over a month.”

Most of what Jack recalls concerning himself with in that hazy whirl of deaths is showers and feeding the Doctor. “What did you eat? _Did_ you eat?”

The Doctor blinks, nonplussed. “I have no idea. I suppose I must have done.” He pauses. “That may explain your rather odd obsession with feeding me, when, ah. When you had longer days. Later.”

“Obsession?” Jack remembers no such thing.

“Maybe not. Only you seemed to want me to eat any time you saw me, which I suppose made sense when you saw me every three days. Not so much for twelve hours straight. You did the best you could, Jack, for all I was doing the worst.” Jack finds he has nothing to say, to that.

In the retelling there is reliving, as well, and often at the end of the day they all pile into bed together, held tight for comfort, held close for the warmth of three bodies instead of two, to chase away the lingering chills. Jack aches for his cuffs. He hasn't been able to explain why he should want them back, but he does; wants them fiercely, and can't have them. He presses his wrists together habitually now, wraps anything at all tight around in the rare minutes he is alone, just for a moment of relief. He catches himself rubbing his wrists nearly raw when no one is around to distract him, and the anxiety is only getting worse as the Doctor's story continues its slow descent to the worst times.

“Surely some of this - you don't need it all in detail, do you?” The Doctor is fidgeting fretfully again. “I did things I can't bear to tell you, Barnable, please. You'll never smile at me like that again -”

“This is the part where he thinks he raped me,” Jack interjects, holding his left wrist tight in his right hand.

Looking him over critically, Barnable's eyes narrow; his lips flatten unhappily as he glances at the Doctor. “ _I_ think he raped you.”

“Maybe a little, but -”

“It’s not a matter of _opinion_ , Jack, I thought we resolved this. What else could you call it, when you wake up naked and restrained, you tell me _no_ multiple times and I take you anyway?” The Doctor is looking away; he sounds angry. Jack freezes. “Wake up with a, a cock up your arse? If I fuck you when you're crying in pain, if I gag you so I don't have to _listen_ -”

“Doctor. _Doctor!_ Stop!”

“I _told_ you, Barnable -”

“Shut _up_ , it's -”

It's not Jack. He's not there anymore.

-+-+-+-

 


	23. Be brave

Turning quickly, the Doctor cuts himself off in shock. Jack is hunched over his knees, rocking slightly, jaws clamped tight on his right wrist. Head leant on his shoulder, Barnable is rubbing his back slowly. “It's me, love, it's Barney, you're safe here. I'm here and the Doctor is here and no one is angry at you, no one is hurting you, you're sitting on the sofa in the tower in Christmas. I'm rubbing your back, there's the heat of the fire in front of you, do you hear the flames crackling?” He speaks soft and slow and sure, trying to ground Jack in his present surroundings, instead of wherever his mind is telling him he is - which the Doctor can guess quite well.

Jack begins to uncurl and the Doctor lays a hand carefully on his arm, runs a finger across his lip. “I'm not angry with you, Jack.” He only succeeds in avoiding _Captain_ in that sentence by weeks of practice. “Please let go your wrist.” He only remembers Jack had his other wrist confined in a crushing grip as well when he moans sickly and moves, without releasing his right wrist at all.

Wrapping his own hand around Jack's quickly reddening wrist, Barnable murmurs, “I've got you, love.” It seems to steady Jack; he stops moaning, uncurls a little further.

The Doctor swallows. It's quite clear what he has to do to help, here, but he's not sure he _can_. Every time he tries to help he digs them deeper. “Jack,” the Doctor whispers reluctantly, “Jack, give me your wrist.” Barnable glares at him over Jack's bent head, and maybe he should have phrased that better, but it's too late now. Coaxing Jack's jaws open, the Doctor carefully pulls the mangled wrist free of the teeth sunk into it and, without looking too closely or thinking about it further, wraps his hands around.

Jack shudders, and relaxes. “I'm sorry,” he says, abjectly so; when he turns his face to the Doctor his eyes are wide and shocky. “Please, I'm sorry. Please give them back. I won't do it again.”

“You haven't done anything wrong, Jack,” the Doctor tries, not following. His guessing seems to be off.

“I won't do it again. I'm sorry. Please, Doctor, I promise, I won't.”

His cuffs, the Doctor realises in sick horror, stomach slowly tying itself in knots. Begging for the cuffs the Doctor had used to claim him, to keep him, to restrain him; to hurt him, over and over again.

“What is it?” Barnable asks softly.

“His cuffs. There was a day, somewhere in there, amidst… all that. He cut them off. I put them back together, and put them back on. Wherever he is, it's only partially a memory.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Are you mad?” Jack cringes away from him and the Doctor modulates his tone. “I'm not cuffing him again. I'm not restraining him again. I won't. I _can't_ , Barnable, don't you see what I've done to us, I can't - he'll just be back there, stuck there in memory, it won't _help_.”

Barnable frowns at him. “You don't get to pick what he finds comforting, Doctor. The more anxious he gets, the more he worries at his wrists. Haven't you noticed?”

Now that he points it out, yes; he hadn't wanted to. But still - he looks down at his hands, grounding Jack in a place he shouldn't _be_. “I can't.”

Barnable stares at him, at Jack, still and silent and tense as a coiled spring between them - how terrifyingly confused must he be, right now? - and takes a breath. “Where's the rope?”

-+-+-

Everything is better when Jack awakes, safe and warm and held close in bed where he belongs, comforting pressure on his wrists; all is well, he is forgiven. “Doctor,” Jack sighs; he freezes when the wrong voice answers.

“Just me, love.” He can't place it at first; then he does, but it makes no sense. Why should Barnable be here, _how_ \- Jack opens his eyes, and everything is wrong again.

Wrong bed, wrong room, wrong ceiling, wrong smell, wrong sound, wrong light, wrong _gravity_ \- not his cuffs but rope looped around his wrists, not even tied - not the TARDIS. Not the Doctor.

Not forgiven.

Left here alone, discarded, like an empty sweet wrapper, like nothing at all. Nothing left inside.

The emptiness eats him to a shell, and then he's gone again.

-+-+-

“Doctor!” The sheer panic in Barnable's voice has him at the best he can come to a run before he has time to think, nearly tumbling over a chair, catching himself on the doorframe. “He cries when I touch him, Doctor, what, what did I do, what do I do?”

Jack is as lost as the Doctor has ever seen him, curled in a tight fetal position, whining quietly as he worries at the rope on his wrists with his teeth. Knelt over him protectively, Barnable looks terrified - and guilty. Plenty of that to go around.

“Don't touch him,” the Doctor suggests sourly. “He probably can't make sense of you being here.”

“He thought I was you, just at first, he seemed happy,” Barnable says, climbing carefully from the bed. “But when I answered…”

Heartsick, the Doctor considers the damage he has done. “I'll bring him back,” he says, sitting on the bed alongside Jack. “Be silent, please, or leave the room. Jack,” he tries, without response. “Jack, I'm here.” He sucks a reluctant breath through his teeth. It is a day for risky choices, perhaps. “ _Captain_.”

Jack stops worrying at the rope. “Doctor?” comes a tiny, choked reply. “I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Please don't leave me here.”

Suddenly terrified of the future for an entirely new reason, the Doctor cards Jack's hair slowly. He had never seen any sign that his death devastated Jack; certainly it affected him, it was obvious in his demeanor, but it hadn't seemed to do him any great damage. But then the Doctor never did know how many years passed between visits. If this is a taste of his fear of abandonment… In the face of all those tomorrows he will have to face alone, the Doctor cannot begrudge any effort to improve them.

“I'm here, Captain. I'm here now. Be brave for me, and let me take this rope off you, please?”

Hesitantly Jack offers his wrists, and the Doctor unwinds the rope. In a voice only slightly less timid than before, Jack asks, “May I have my cuffs back, please? I won't try to take them off again. I promise I won't.”

“I know you won't. Everything has been terribly confused lately, but you've done the best you could. You've done all I asked of you, and I'm proud of you.” Swallowing bile at the necessity of inserting himself into Jack's delusions, he leans back against the pillows, pulls his wounded Captain close. “But I can't give you back the cuffs, Jack, I'm sorry. It's not a punishment. I just can't.” Face against his chest, the anxious misery finally overcomes Jack in racking sobs. “I'm so sorry. I'm here now. I'll stay with you.”

He cries himself to sleep, which is further proof this is all far too much. Sleeping so often is very unusual for him, even if it never lasts for long.

The Doctor waves a hand for Barnable, waiting outside the doorway, absently rubbing his partially numb right hand against his trousers as he watches with big, anxious eyes. “Come lay down,” he invites. “We'll see if we can't get him back in the right place and time when he wakes up.”

“I'm sorry,” Barnable says, once he is settled in.

“Don't you start that, too. If I knew how to fix this I would have done already. We're going to make mistakes.” He sighs, and reaches a hand out to grasp Barnable's reassuringly. “I just wish Jack didn't have to suffer for them.”

-+-+-

Muddle-headed and dehydrated is not how Jack _usually_ wakes, but on the other hand he is half sprawled over the Doctor, face pressed to his shoulder, surrounded by his scent; a hand strokes his back slowly, which seems promising. He nuzzles upward, lets his hand wander down and then back up, underneath the Doctor’s waistcoat. Muffled laughter comes from behind him and Jack freezes.

The Doctor kisses his forehead. “Do you know where you are, Jack?”

Since when does he wear a waistcoat, Jack thinks for one more confused moment; then he remembers. “Yes. I didn't, but I'm alright now.” Lifting his head, he glances at Barnable, who doesn't look like someone who just laughed. “What's so funny, Barney?”

“In an odd turn of events, the answer is actually _nothing_ ,” Barnable says, studying him carefully. “I thought you getting handsy the moment you woke was a sure sign you were back with us, and thought it was funny, but it turns out it wasn't.” His eyes shift sharply. “And the Doctor didn't expect it to be, either.”

“He's always like that,” the Doctor agrees. “Always has been. It's how he deals with things.”

“Always will be, when it's you,” Jack says, shifting up a bit so he can kiss the Doctor. There hasn't been enough of that, lately. Pulling away slightly, he adds, “Nothing I like better than waking up to you.”

The Doctor's face falls and he looks away. “Make me no promises, Jack,” he murmurs.

“You've already agreed to tell no lies, for now,” Jack points out. Why he should object to that, of all statements, Jack can’t guess and isn’t sure he wants to know. The Doctor's hand is still firm against the back of his neck, and after another breath he turns back and pulls Jack into another kiss, biting and sucking his lip, licking slowly into his mouth. His other hand drifts down to Jack's arse, pulling him closer.

Jack moans appreciatively, and Barnable, laughing again, says, “Shall I go?”

“Mmm. You're welcome to stay, of course,” Jack suggests hopefully. He needs a break, no trauma, no dealing with problems, just a good fuck. It's the best distraction.

With a noise of fond exasperation, Barnable leans down to kiss his head as he goes. “Someone has to make some food.”

-+-+-

“No cuffs,” Jack verifies at supper, eyes shuttered.

“No cuffs,” the Doctor agrees, feeling a heartless cad but certain they would not be a step forward, right now. Certain he could not put them on.

“I'm sorry about the rope,” Barnable says, staring at his plate.

“I doubt it made things worse,” Jack said. “It helped in the moment, I think.” Barnable nods. “Good enough, then. No, it was…” He falls silent, gaze lost in the distance. By mutual agreement the Doctor and Barnable keep silent as well, waiting for him to return. “You weren't there,” he continues eventually, watching the Doctor expressionlessly. “You abandoned me. Don't do it again.”

The Doctor swallows painfully. Hurting Jack with his guilt again. “I'm sorry. I won't.”

“What were the cuffs _for_? You didn't mind tying me up before you knew there were flashbacks involved.” This is a side of Jack not usually directed at him, harsh and demanding, eyes burning blue as the center of a flame. “What do they mean to you, that you're sick at the thought? That you would abandon me before comforting me?”

“Claim you,” the Doctor whispers, wanting desperately to reach out and touch, anchor himself in that deep stillness as he has done so often. “Keep you. Hurt you. Force you.” To have done these things to _this_ man, to have subverted his love, to have perverted the eternal flame that burns within him -

“Do it all again.”

“ _What?_ Are you mad?” Maybe he is, maybe this is all mad. Barnable is watching them anxiously, hand covering his mouth as if to hold in his comments.

“Claim me again,” Jack says. “Everything I am. Keep me again, for as long as you want me. Hurt me again, as much as you like. Force me again, whenever you want to. I want it all.”

Mouth open, frozen in place, the Doctor can think of no response. Can think of nothing at all but the terror of those words in a truth field. Looking away, Barnable quietly takes his dishes to the kitchen and goes upstairs. Jack watches the Doctor silently as he eats his supper; he takes away the rest of the dishes, and does the washing up, and doesn't say another word all evening. The Doctor is left with his thoughts, breaking against each other like surf, obscuring more than they clarify.

-+-+-+-

 


	24. I can be your refuge

The Doctor is sitting on the sofa, Barnable leant back against him and nearly in his lap, speaking quietly; have they started without him? Jack needs the linear recitation of those years just as much as anything else here. It's all a tangle in his head, and as with anything else tangled pulling it out straight exposes the knots and snarls and things caught inside. Looking up at him, the Doctor holds out his hand, and the angry buzz of anxiety subsides. Jack tucks himself sideways between the Doctor's legs, lays his head in his lap, forehead resting against Barnable, and lets his hand curl lightly around the Doctor's left ankle self-indulgently. It's not as if he were going anywhere. “More story,” Jack prods.

“We thought maybe not, today,” Barnable says, slipping his arm over Jack's shoulders. “We could take a break. Take a walk. You've barely been out in weeks, love, we've had about you've been ill. People keep offering to bring by meals.”

“'m still ill,” Jack mumbles, not feeling up to bracing the town's well-wishes. “Start where we left off.”

“Shan’t,” the Doctor denies. “You had another flashback.”

“So, don’t just leave me there. Keep going.” Jack settles in stubbornly. “I’m not letting you up until you do.”

After a pause to determine whether they will break the stalemate themselves - of course not - Barnable shrugs and jumps right in. “I'm really not qualified to work out issues of consent between you two. I'm not sure anyone is. But - Captain, what in God's name does _maybe a little_ mean, in this context?” He shakes his head and adds plaintively, “I haven't known whether to be mad at him, since.”

Jack snorts; even the Doctor's lips twitch. “Don't bother on my account. Nor his; self-flagellation is a particular specialty. It means it's complicated, the way we do things.” Barnable nudges the Doctor in a very _I told you so_ sort of way. “What?”

“I told him _that_ wasn't the part that bothers you, either. But I don't know why. It sounded bad to me.”

Entirely matter-of-fact, Jack says, “I would kill anyone who did any of that to you.”

The Doctor is utterly lacking sense or self-preservation, as usual. “Even -”

Hand clamping tight on his ankle to stop him, Jack fights down his rebelling stomach and the static in his mind to grind out, “Don’t ask me that today.”

Barnable’s arm tightens around him and cool fingers twine through his hair gently. “I’m sorry,” the Doctor says; Jack doesn't look up, just in case.

“But, then you know it was wrong,” Barnable says hesitantly.

With some relief Jack decides to ignore the Doctor for now; maybe Barnable will be able to talk some sense into him. “We did a lot of wrong things. But trying to make me accept an apology for something I've said I don't want an apology for because he hates himself for doing it is also wrong. He wants me to validate his self-loathing, and I won’t do it. This is how we started, what you’ve been seeing here. More than this. A long time ago - a very long time ago - I was… call it _very actively_ suicidal.” He pauses to watch Barnable process the idea; not pretty, but it would be worse with details. “Yeah. It wasn’t working out well for me, obviously. There really wasn’t anything the Doctor could do worse than what I was doing to myself, which is… probably the only reason he was willing to get involved. He was in control completely, and that’s how I like it. That’s how he likes it too, with me, until he gets scared of himself. I don’t have a safe word with him. I don’t want one.”

Frowning down at him, Barnable makes a doubtful noise. The Doctor’s other hand is in _his_ hair, but he doesn’t tend to like that - no, it is laying against his temple, not moving. Analgesic, then; he has a migraine coming on, but doesn’t want to leave them alone quite yet. “So then, _maybe a little_ -?”

“It’s complicated,” Jack repeats. “Yes, we had sex I didn't want. No, I don’t regard that, by itself, as a violation or a breach of trust. What you have to understand,” he says after a pause, raising his head to pin each of them with a needle-sharp stare, “what you _have to_ understand, and _don't_ yet, is that I signed up for every moment of it. Every. Single. Moment. You made bad choices, Doctor, and you did bad things, and I didn't enjoy it sometimes, but you are apologising for the _wrong things_ and I'm tired of you pretending I'm your victim. I know you’re not comfortable with your limits, but I am. Please consider,” he says, a hint of a smile crinkling his face, “how much sex I’ve had with you since.”

Barnable breaks out in surprised, sputtering laughter. “He’s got you there, Doctor.”

After considering him silently for a moment, the Doctor suggests, with odd emphasis, “A matter between me and my conscience, then, and leave you out of it?” He hums thoughtfully at Jack’s nod. “So, if that’s not it -” Ah. The whole point of this exercise, of course, but Jack finds he had been hoping to somehow communicate it without thinking about it at all. The Doctor’s hand slides down his head, comes to rest at the back of his neck; his fingertips press lightly below Jack's ear, a comforting pressure. When in contact, when he doesn't think about it, the Doctor's read on his emotional state is almost always excellent. The reasons behind it - he can't know without prying, and he never does. “All those things, Jack, you said do them again. But you left off the end. _But don't_ \- don't what? What was _worse?_ ”

“It wasn’t what you did, Doctor, it was how you did it. Don’t - lose yourself. And don’t…” Jack is starting to lose track again, mind straying back, heartbeat crashing like the ocean's roar in his ears; his left hand tight around the Doctor's ankle, right wrist in his mouth again. Tugging carefully, Barnable rescues it, wraps his hands around and squeezes. The Doctor is petting his hair soothingly, pressing Jack's face to his leg.

“You're alright, Captain. Deep breaths.”

Jack takes a deep breath. “You didn't see me at all,” he forces out on the exhale. “That sounds pathetic.” He tries to laugh; it's a mistake. He muffles the awful sound against the Doctor's thigh. “All I want,” he tries, but that's not right either. “No, no one ever has anything simple to say after _that_. It's not easy, or simple. I want to be special, Doctor, that's what it comes down to, and if it sounds pathetic I guess I am. You're always hiding so much, and I want to be the one you come to when you're tired of hiding.” His hand hasn't stopped petting Jack's hair, which is probably good. It feels good. Leaning back, Jack tilts his head up to see the Doctor's face again. Gravely attentive, maybe sad, but no sign of rejection. “To _me_ , Doctor, do you understand? Do it all, but do it to _me_. At some point in there, I realised that you weren't seeing me at all anymore, I wasn't even a person, just - nothing. A shell, just there to be cracked open to reach the fire inside. I didn’t know if it was even _you_ doing it, by the end, or someone not the Doctor anymore at all. Just wearing your skin. All the love was gone, and there was no more comfort, and there was nothing left to trust. And if I couldn't trust _you_ anymore, I couldn't be _me_.”

“And it broke you,” the Doctor finishes softly. Jack nods. “Trust me to _what_ , Jack? Clearly it's not trust me not to hurt you.”

“Trust _in_ you. Like gravity,” Jack corrects. “Trust you to be the Doctor. Trust you to pull me back.”

-+-+-

 _Like gravity_. It’s how they are to each other, after all, in this wild orbit that swings them in close only to go flying away once again, out among the stars. An orbit collapsed by the gravity of Trenzalore. Jack fears asking too much, but the Doctor already knew this about him, learned it long ago. Waiting for his response, Jack's eyes are half lidded in pleasure at the Doctor's fingers running through his hair.

“All you want - is all of me,” the Doctor says quietly, finishing his thought with what that future Jack told him long ago. Jack's eyes open, deep and clear, colour indistinct in the firelight, and he nods. All that's left of him doesn't seem like such a great deal to give. “My Jack.”

They don't go for a walk, but neither do they resume the story that day. The Doctor practices not running away instead; Jack doesn't want to let go of him after Barnable, judging them safe to leave and with abject apologies, retires to bed to sleep off the migraine. _That_ has been happening more frequently as well. The stress is taking its toll on all of them.

Deep in thought, the Doctor is mostly silent, drifting through the tower or sitting with Jack. “Your cuffs,” he says at one point. “You want them back?”

“Not most of the time.” Jack is rubbing his wrists unconsciously again; now he's had it pointed out the Doctor notices it constantly. “But going back through it… they were… mine. They were comfort, and promise, and a strange kind of safety. And then you took that away too, any meaning I thought they had, and I _was_ nothing and I _had_ nothing and - not having them feels bad, right now. We can't stop here, Doctor.”

“We won't,” he promises, pulling Jack to his chest, tucking his head under his chin. “I just need to… to process. You told me I had it wrong so many times and I couldn’t understand, but it’s _not_ the things I remember, is it. It’s the silences, it’s the times I wasn’t paying attention at all. I kept trying to apologise… I think one time I told you I hadn't meant to. It made you so angry.” What a rubbish apology. _I really wasn’t thinking about you at all._

“ _Yes_ ,” Jack says, relaxing into him.

“You'll let me apologise now.”

Jack sighs, breath warm against the Doctor's chest. “Yes, fine, alright. If you must.”

“I must,” the Doctor agrees. “What I did to you was wrong, Jack. Wrong without exception or mitigation, no matter your consent, because everything you gave me was in the name of a trust that I broke. I let myself imagine the rules didn’t apply to me, as if there were something the universe _owed_ me, and let myself imagine you the tool to my hand instead of willing partner and counterbalance. And in the end I stopped _caring_ whether you were willing or not.” He takes a quick breath, voice hitching. “Stopped noticing at all. I’m sorry, Jack. I hurt you so badly, and I didn’t even see it. I understand now. I see you.”

Jack has opened his mouth and closed it again several times whilst the Doctor spoke, and now is staring at some point beyond the Doctor. The crack in the universe, maybe; it tends to draw the eye. “Yes,” he says finally, “I think maybe you do. After all this time.”

Sighing in relief, the Doctor says, “Well, you told me to keep trying.”

Jack frowns at him. “When was that? _I_ told you to quit. I distinctly remember.”

Oops. “You will do, then.”

“Secrets again.” The Doctor nods, words suddenly too risky, and Jack regards him pensively before laying his head back down against the Doctor's chest. “I’d forgotten, I think, over the years, how important it is sometimes to stop you, for all it almost broke me to learn. But the rest is no good without that, is it? You need to be able to trust me as well. I'm sorry.”

“Yes,” the Doctor whispers, finally able to accept this apology in turn. To lose trust in his Captain is unthinkable. “I need that.”

“I’ll do better,” Jack promises. “We’ll fix this, Doctor, and I’ll be - I’ll be what you need.”

In bed that night, tucked up against Jack's beloved sprawl, the Doctor's mind is still whirling like a top, spinning off ideas every so often without regard to any sensible order. “It's not just because you like it that way,” he says. Jack makes a questioning noise and he elaborates. “That you don't have a safe word.”

“No, of course not. But Barney has enough to deal with without more of _that_ topic.” He pauses to think; the Doctor waits. “I can still say _no_ , Doctor, in all sorts of ways. I do, sometimes. But if you stop when I ask you to, it's _always_ your choice. You know it. _I_ know it. All a safe word would do is make you avoid me when you don't feel in control of yourself, because you'd be afraid you wouldn't stop. That's exactly what I don't want. I can't be your equal, but if you let me, I can be your refuge.”

It _hurts_ , that Jack thinks he could never be an equal; he is something altogether different, certainly, but not inferior. And in time… in time he will be more. If he hadn't already spent all that time with Jack-on-Bellacosa, if he hadn't already experienced Jack's utter sincerity on this matter, the Doctor probably would not have been able to accept his words. As it is, they only serve to make things finally, _finally_ , make sense. But he will never be comfortable with that side of himself. Feeling sick at the memory, the Doctor suggests, “My punching bag.”

Jack shrugs. “If that's what you need. I have excellent qualifications for it, you’ve got to admit. And a pretty face, too. You'll put me back together when you're done.”

That faith in him is still terrifying. “I don't think I understand this part, Jack.”

“That's alright. Just believe me, this time. When the choice is stay with me, or run away in fear of what you might do, Doctor - _stay with me_.” He believes, now. Jack wants it all, no exceptions.

Another twenty minutes pass before the Doctor is brave enough to ask the next question. “What if - what if I would really feel much better with a safe word?”

Jack is silent for minutes more, but he heard; his heart beats faster under the Doctor's ear, his breaths carefully controlled. By the time he takes a deep breath to speak, the Doctor expects the answer to be _I'm not answering that_. But it's not. “What do you think would happen. Given what you know about me, and you, and trust. If I were to use my safe word.” He takes another careful breath. “And you _didn't_ stop.”

It is obscurely comforting to have found the edge of Jack's faith in him. Not boundless, then; still grounded in reality. And he knows the Doctor very, very well. The risk is too much to take. The Doctor shifts up to nuzzle into Jack's neck, the fire of him so bright in all this darkness. “Don't give me a safe word,” he concedes, quietly.

-+-+-+-

 


	25. Gods and monsters

“What's a Reaper?” Barnable asks, clearly hoping for a reprieve from the litany of unlikely deaths Jack suffered that day. His face changes from sickly pale to livid as the Doctor explains, and he throws himself to his feet to stride furiously away from the sofa. “You -” he says, and stops, breathing heavily. “You tried to -”

“Without attempting to _excuse_ it,” Jack says, after a glance at the Doctor makes clear he has no intention of defending himself, “it was hardly at all _him_ , at that point.”

“Why isn't _that_ the part you have flashbacks about?” Barnable demands.

Jack shakes his head. “Trauma doesn't work in any sensible way like that, Barney. And I didn't care by then, anyway.” He eventually sits back down again, but on Jack's other side, no longer able to offer comfort to the Doctor.

-+-+-

“I don't remember this part very well,” the Doctor admits.

“Surprise,” Jack says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “You gave it a damned good try burning your brains out.”

“ _My_ brains are much more resilient than your dodgy human neural material.”

“Well _mine_ heal quicker.”

Barnable shakes his head, reluctantly amused. They have been attempting to make the story easier for him, in small ways; he won’t accept coddling, and he won’t stop listening, but nothing could have prepared him for discovering he lives with gods and monsters. He doesn’t share their bed anymore. Jack half expects him to announce he’s leaving, every time he speaks, and it is quietly tearing the Doctor apart to have lost his trust. “You two have the most ridiculous arguments.”

“Gotta pass the time somehow,” Jack says, smiling up at him. The designated middle of their little group for the time being, he has decided to take advantage of it and is lying with his head in Barnable’s lap and his legs over the Doctor’s, comfortably obnoxious to both of them. Maybe they’ll gang up on him and sit together again, one of these days.

-+-+-

“And you think that's alright, do you? Playing god like that? You hadn't the right, Doctor.” Barnable has grown more reticent as the days pass, visibly suppressing comments as the Doctor describes the immense effort of restoring a galactic civilisation's-worth of timelines, but the more the Doctor makes it sound like a clever puzzle the more upset he gets. “What kind of person thinks this is alright?”

The Doctor certainly doesn’t, but no one can bear this kind of unrelenting misery without attempting to lighten the telling. Jack knows it was wrong as well, but he had played the fool at the time, content to let the Doctor lead the way. He can't meet Barnable's eyes.

“I'm a _Time Lord_ , Barnable. This sort of thing is what we do; fix timelines, maintain continuity, ensure stability.”

“Time Lords are above _noticing_ all the little lives they step on, are they?”

“Don't be ridiculous.” The Doctor pushes himself angrily to his feet and stomps away a few steps. Jack freezes, hands clenched in the fabric of his trousers. “Most of them _were_ , I'll grant you that. I'm not. I wouldn't be here if I were, Barnable, what do you call this whole planet but a great lot of little lives I'm trying to keep from getting stepped on?”

That dismissive anger isn't even aimed at him this time, but he can't help it; he can't move, watching from far behind his eyes as the Doctor walks away from him, leaving him behind. Hand clamped on his left wrist, a small relief; he curls forward slowly, invisible as angry voices flow around him, breaths continuing without his control, to bite down on his right wrist, and that's alright, then - he'll wait. He'll always wait. The Doctor has come back for him before.

After some time, Jack becomes aware of dark, concerned eyes looking into his, a gentle pressure lifting his chin. “Captain,” someone says, but it’s the wrong voice. Jack stares back, unsure. A presence beside him, a cool hand on his arm. “Captain.” This time it’s right and Jack relaxes, lets go his wrist into the care of his keeper. “Doctor.”

“I’m so sorry, Jack.”

“‘S alright,” he mumbles, not sure _what_ , yet, but certain it is.

-+-+-

Peering cautiously out of the stairwell at the moonlit darkness of the roof, Jack can make out the huddled lump that is Barnable, but no further details. Better than discovering he had fled, but still concerning. “Barney?”

An indrawn breath. “How can you stand him?”

“Infuriating, isn't he,” Jack agrees, coming to sit next to Barnable. This is going to hurt. “But we're not so different, he and I.”

“You're not so arrogant.”

With a rueful laugh, Jack says, “Oh, yes, I am. I just tend to work on smaller scales. And I'm better when I have him around to look after.”

“Are you also in the habit of killing people you love repeatedly, then?” It's meant in jest but can't be taken that way.

“I wouldn't call it a habit, for either of us,” he replies. Barnable stiffens and slides away from him slightly. “And _repeatedly_ is quite unusual.”

“Any destroyed civilisations I should know about?”

After thinking about it for longer than Barnable would probably prefer, Jack answers, “I don't think so. Usually they do that to themselves.”

“I don't think I know either of you at all.”

“Better than anyone but each other, here. You've known the Doctor all your life, Barney. That's who he is. He's just… more, also. A long time ago. Four hundred years, at least, for him. More than that, for me. Everyone else you know, you can know their life story. You probably _do_. I don't know my own. I can remember most of my history with the Doctor - I think - and it's the nearest thing I have to a thread stitching it all together. The rest of it… comes, and goes, and maybe disappears for good. How would I know? I keep backups of places I’ve been and when, important facts, but even that is fallible. Who I am, in the here and now, is all I have. It's all I can know.” Jack hesitates, then sets his hand lightly on Barnable's knee. “It's all I can give you, bright eyes.”

Barnable slips his hand under Jack's, laces their fingers together, but doesn't reply for some time. Finally he sighs. “I need to… get out more. Spend some time being… human.”

“Yes,” Jack agrees, relieved he isn't leaving. “Whatever you need. _Thank you_. I don't say it often enough, and he certainly doesn't, but we love you, Barney, and we don't want to lose you, and none of this would work without you. I'm sorry it's so hard. Thank you.”

“You'll lose me eventually,” Barnable points out, and Jack winces. Too much talk of death lately.

“I know.”

Glancing askance at him, Barnable asks, “It's worth it?”

“Every moment.”

-+-+-

Sometimes the Doctor doesn’t mention the parts Jack remembers; sometimes Jack doesn’t mention them either. But if not, he usually does after Barnable goes to bed, just to make sure he has everything in the right order. Some of it, of course, the Doctor can’t remember either; but they do the best they can. He has no more fully immersive flashbacks, never wakes up expecting the TARDIS, never fails to recognise Barnable again. But he still freezes in paralysing anxiety when the Doctor turns away from him in anger. For a while he does so with Barnable as well which is terrifying for all of them the first time it happens. The first time he manages _not_ to freeze is an underrated success, Jack feels. Lying on the sofa, he only notices something is off when his rather excellent view of the back of the Doctor’s well-tailored trousers is obscured by Barnable’s concerned face. “Alright, Captain?”

“Just fine.” Jack grins and shoves him lightly. “You're blocking the view.”

Barnable snorts, and when he moves the Doctor is staring down at Jack, looking… Jack isn't sure. He tries pouting, and the Doctor looks _more_ \- whatever it is. “You weren't paying attention at all, were you.”

“I was paying lots of attention!” The Doctor's brows quirk together doubtfully. “Those trousers look really good on you.”

Shoulders shaking, Barnable suggests, “How to win an argument with the Captain.”

The Doctor's lips are twitching, amused now, and relieved and for some reason slightly insulted, Jack thinks; and he _winks_ at Barnable. “I admit, I have used this knowledge to unfair advantage on a number of occasions.”

“Hey! I am definitely that easy, but - oh,” Jack attempts to protest, as Barnable wanders away, laughing a little harder than the situation really deserves. “You can go back to pacing,” he suggests hopefully.

Shaking his head, the Doctor smiles down at him. “Nevermind.”

As he turns to go, Jack tries, “They look good off you, too!” It doesn't get him anything but a bark of laughter and an empty pair of trousers, later.

Day by day now Jack can feel a difference, jagged edges smoothing over, twisted knots of mental landscape untangling, easing paths that trauma had left hazardous. The Doctor, he hopes, will be able to lay aside the guilt as well; hard as it is, the retelling is healing them both. But day by day the Doctor elides more and more of the story, because day by day it hurts Barnable more.

He doesn't say, _Jack killed himself because I couldn't do it anymore_. And he doesn't say, _and then I begged him to do it again_. He says, “We finally did manage it. And in the end… in the end, those timelines were too heavy. Even without the paradox machines, they destroyed themselves. I couldn’t change that.”

“The stars went out,” Jack explains, seeing the fearsome beauty of it again in his mind's eye. “So many stars went out.” He sits between them again, holding the Doctor’s hand tight to anchor him against the memory. Barnable leans against the arm, watching them both, his knee a welcome pressure against Jack’s thigh.

“I don’t remember,” the Doctor says, voice distant. “It was all fire, all the whirling madness, even with you, by then, it never let up. Never relented. All fire, and then suddenly, all darkness. It all fell away, and I…” He turns to look at Jack and the firelight in his eyes flickers like gold and Jack shudders.

“You burned,” he whispers.

“I remember you,” the Doctor says softly, tugging Jack’s hand closer and clasping it between both of his. “When all the world was fire and madness, you kept me safe through it all.”

Rendered unexpectedly speechless, Jack pulls the Doctor to him and kisses him, leaving all his love and heartache and willingness and regret at the surface where the Doctor will feel it. In fire and madness, at the Doctor's side is where he belongs.

A warm hand on his cheek then, and Barnable scolding mildly, “A kiss like that and you're crying?” Jack pulls away, opens his eyes to see Barnable perched on the arm of the sofa at the Doctor's other side, thumb brushing a tear from his cheek. “Budge over.” They do, and the Doctor sighs and leans against Barnable, and Jack watches them and smiles. One thing fixed, anyway.

-+-+-+-

 


	26. Pyrrhic victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _NSFW. Power play of a different sort._

_Make tomorrow better_ , Jack said. It is Jack’s tomorrows the Doctor has done it all for, and lucky thing, because his own have not improved. He had fully intended never to let anyone down again - never to let Barnable down. It should have been possible; all his time here on Trenzalore has been a long, boring success so far, a heroic last stand of such protracted length that the drama has dissipated and all that remains is a steady faith that the Doctor will solve the problem. Problem solver, storyteller, teacher of children; he could have lived out his life without seeing that shattering loss of faith again, if he had simply…

If he had refused to help Jack? If he had sent him away before the problem came up? Abhorrent thought. The Doctor shudders and presses closer to the steady heat of his favourite Fact, lying awake next to him in bed.

Jack’s arm tightens around him. “What’s wrong?”

“Will he forgive me, do you think?” the Doctor asks, turning his thoughts away from the inevitable future.

“I think he’d have left if he weren’t already trying very hard to do so.”

“Difficult task,” the Doctor mutters bitterly.

Jack chuckles. “Must be. Look how long it’s taken you.” Which is an unfairly good point and very depressing besides; the Doctor may have made significant progress toward that goal, but Barnable won’t live that long. He watches them warily now, lost in thought, his bright smile slower, his laugh less frequent. He makes a point of going out every day, even with a migraine, to immerse himself in the life of the town and leave behind the monster that has lurked all unsuspected for centuries inside the tower. “Give him time,” Jack says softly. “We have plenty to spare.”

More than Barnable has, certainly, if not nearly so much as Jack supposes. Life was easier, when he was alone. When he could convince himself all the complications were long past and buried, and nothing left to miss him when he was too.

Sat at his worktable a few days later, unhappily alone, the Doctor can feel eyes on him; no matter their owner is out of sight. “Stop looking at me like that, Barnable. I’m not going to transform into a monster before your eyes.”

“When I’m not looking, then?” He asks it lightly, but it’s not really a joke.

“Not then, either.” Pulling a chair up to the Doctor’s table, Barnable sits and watches silently for a while. “I’m not,” the Doctor insists.

“How do you know?”

A question that he has spent not a little time considering; but certainly he could never become that particular monster again. Jack would destroy him first. The knowledge is deeply, unsettlingly comforting. Setting down his chisel, the Doctor swings aside the magnifying glass and frowns at his… whatever Barnable is. He’s never been good with things like that. Assistant, in a great many ways; companion of long standing; partner in not a few endeavours; confidante, support, and occasional warm comfort. His witness, and his judge; both in the way historians always are and in a more immediate sense, now. Pity he can’t just sweep them off into another adventure to lighten things up, leave everyone laughing together at the end.

“I wish I could show you,” he says, nodding upward, “out there. All the vastness of time and space, all the beauty. All that was or ever will be, in all its order and chaos and infinite glory. I’ve been a lot of different people out there, Barnable, but right now I’m just an old, eccentric man in a tower, standing guard against a war that never was, shaking a stick at the sky. It isn't less true just because I've been other things. Jack will tell you, too. He has been a great many people in his time, and all of them were him, but he isn't all of them; he is who he is _now_.”

“He did say something very like that, yes,” Barnable agrees, looking gratifyingly less distant. “I said I didn’t know either of you at all. And he said, more or less, neither does he. Which is… I don’t understand. I _don’t_ understand, Doctor, and I think I'm glad of it. But if I've been a help to you, despite that, I'm glad of that, too.”

“It's not _in spite of_ anything. It’s inherent in you, Barnable, and I’ll thank you to stop making disparaging remarks about people I love.”

Taken aback, Barnable peers at him quizzically across the table; then a smile creeps over his face. “You’ve been trying not to be grumpy for weeks, haven’t you. Doesn’t come naturally?”

“Not even a little bit,” the Doctor grumbles, satisfied. They will mend, and go on.

Jack’s mending, it seems, needs a certain amount of silence and solitude. Story completed, he retreats to the roof of the tower; when the Doctor goes to check on him he is sent away politely but firmly. After two days of that, Jack leaves entirely, out to wander the forests alone although he has to face the gauntlet of concerned townsfolk on his way. He returns home dutifully each evening, makes unthreatening, _human,_ conversation with Barnable and lets the Doctor cling to him at night, safe and secure and anchored, until the evening he finds them leant together on the sofa in a closeness that used to be commonplace. He takes it in, not with his usual sense of savouring each moment to the utmost, but with an exhausted sort of relief; his shoulders drop as he sighs deeply and he sits down next to Barnable. “Forgiven us, then?”

“I’m not sure forgiveness is what’s called for,” Barnable replies, reaching for his hand. “But yes, to the extent it’s mine to grant, you have it. It was a lot to take in.”

“Yes,” Jack says, and falls silent. In the morning the Doctor finds a note on the kitchen table and Jack is gone.

Even with the promise of his return within a week, it is all the Doctor can do not to try to go after him; his own mending is well enough except for the reawakened need to be near Jack, to know where he is at all times. Although he has done his best to fight it, still it persists. It’s probably what chased Jack off.

“He can’t have known it would do this to you,” Barnable says, watching him pace anxiously back and forth, cane thumping alongside. “I could go after him?”

“No. He wouldn’t have gone if he didn’t need to.” With a sigh, the Doctor stops. He points slightly north of west. “He’s that way. He burns like a beacon to me, Barnable, he pulls me in and all of time distorts about him; I can’t _not_ see him.”

“I know.” Barnable regards him with that pensive expression he gets when he is reminded that Jack is very far from simply human. It doesn’t seem to _bother_ him, exactly, but he seems to spend a fair amount of time thinking about it lately. “And he knows. He would come back, if he knew it was bothering you this much.”

“Well for goodness sake don’t tell him, then.”

Shaking his head, Barnable huffs a reluctant laugh. “You two. Come by the weaving hall then, one of the electric looms is misbehaving.” When the Doctor is finished with it, he has to slow it back down so it doesn't work faster than they can keep up with; but it does provide a pleasant few hours of distraction. He will just have to find more distractions.

-+-+-

For weeks the tower had felt like a safe haven; Jack had had no desire to leave the confines of its walls. But once the tale was told, the tangled recollections of that desperate time set to rights, he had suddenly had no desire but to be gone. It wasn’t quite the end of the story, but it was _an_ end, and enough to burden Barnable with. Perhaps there isn’t a true ending - just this struggle to go on, one step at a time. They keep coming back, after all, sojourners on this arcing, intersecting path of theirs; it’s time to step away and be separate, just for a little while.

Once matters at home are repaired enough to be left, Jack turns his steps toward solitude, away from the Doctor and his incessant _presence_. Some place of no words, of no expectations, some place he can simply _be_ , a moment of consciousness on a line that spans the life of the universe. If not being were an option, he might try that.

Hunger drives him home after four days, not entirely easy in himself yet but feeling much more settled. More able to play at normal life and put himself back together in the spare silent moments. He had told the Doctor it would fix him, but there is no easy solution, no quick resolution; only leaning into the hurt each day as they learn to live together again. Only making the decision to trust, over and over again. Only trying to find within himself once more that strength forged in fire so long ago, to be a last line of defence for the conscience of a man who knows no limits.

When he arrives back at the tower it is just past midnight. He creeps in silently but the Doctor is waiting up for him, reading by lamp light. The unmasked relief in his eyes as he looks up at Jack is painful to see. It’s what he wanted, isn’t it? The Doctor needs him. Why does it feel such a pyrrhic victory?

“Welcome home, Jack,” the Doctor says quietly.

“You felt me coming.” He nods, and his eyes never leave Jack as he sheds his rucksack and warm wrappings and boots. As soon as Jack is unencumbered he holds his hand out invitingly - and Jack, unexpectedly, has to stop himself from flinching back. What he wants in name only; the Doctor doesn’t need _Jack_ , he needs the anchoring stability of the fixed point inside him, has probably been jumping out of his skin and driving Barnable to distraction for lack of it. Taking his lover’s hand, Jack suffers himself to be pulled to the sofa. “I don’t suppose you put the kettle on?”

With a very self-satisfied smile, the Doctor reaches to the side and produces a mug. “Better! I made you tea!”

Bemused, Jack relaxes back into the sofa, left hand warmed by his mug, right still held tight. “Barnable put you up to that, didn't he."

"I am perfectly capable of being thoughtful and caring all on my own."

Jack smirks. "And yet."

Apparently too glad to have Jack back to take offense, the Doctor just rolls his eyes. "Yes, he did. But _I_ put the hot water bottle in to warm up the bed." Jack raises an eyebrow and the Doctor quickly adds, "On your side. See?"

"Mm," Jack agrees, sipping his tea. As hard as he is trying to hide his distress, his grip on Jack’s hand tells a different story and it’s not one Jack wants to listen to yet. “So what have I missed?”

“Well, you've been exceedingly late for a number of meals -" Jack laughs and nudges him. "Not much. There was some minor… excitement, with a rather good idea I had for an automatic tree coppicer -”

Jack sighs. “What have you done now, Doctor?”

“Why does everyone always say that?"

For a few days Jack tries to ignore the Doctor's neediness; the way he is always reaching for Jack, the way he orientates on him in that horribly familiar way, the way he is always looking up before Jack opens the door. It has been a very, very long time since the days of pain at contact with Jack - or the dramatically unflattering occasions on which he lost control of his stomach - and Jack doesn't wish them back. But neither would he ever have wished for a return to the days the Doctor couldn't bear to be away from him. The Doctor can't seem to shake the fear of Jack leaving, no matter what he says, what promises he doesn't quite make; and this time the Time Lord’s life-long fear of what he might do has been replaced with something harder for Jack to pin down. Still fear of himself, but there is a weary resignation that dogs his every movement that suggests something stronger than mere possibility. The secrets he keeps are tearing him apart, and Jack feels like the captain of a sinking ship, run aground on hidden shoals.

He waits for the need to fade, but when the only change Jack can see is that he has given up hiding it, everything they hadn't told Barnable comes crawling up his throat like bile, impossible to swallow down; all the things they had inflicted on each other in the name of this addiction, all the pain and impossible choices. Jack does the only thing he can do, trapped between his own needs and his promise to stop the Doctor.

He hides.

-+-+-

Only rarely does the Doctor venture into the TARDIS, here on Trenzalore. Instead she sits at the edge of the town square, resplendent in fairy lights, snow gleaming on all her planes and edges, singing softly to him of home. Although she is mostly sleeping, interior space undefined to prolong the energy there is no way to recharge here, he keeps her locked so as not to worry the children. For the most part it is enough to have her here again, quietly present in his mind. When he needs to remember a life before, she is there to soften the blow; when he needs to hide, she provides.  It takes him a long time to remember that he is not the only one with a key.

"Jack?" the Doctor calls softly, closing the door behind him as he enters the unexpectedly warm air inside the TARDIS. There is no other sign of his Captain but he must be here. Every time he has wondered, Jack has felt reassuringly close; every time he has searched, Jack is nowhere to be found. After a fond caress and a cursory check of the console the Doctor throws his coat over a railing and makes his way down the stairs and along the abbreviated corridor, wondering what room she has given Jack to hide in. The first door leads to the kitchen - _a_ kitchen, anyway, small but adequate - which seems a worrying sign of how much time Jack has been spending here. The second door leads to a very familiar bedroom, where Jack lies under a deep red coverlet, curled on his side with his arm flung out as if reaching for the empty side of the bed, eyes closed, breaths deep and even.

The Doctor is quite certain he had dropped that coverlet into a supernova.

Trying not to spend any time thinking about it - he had come to find Jack, and he has found him - the Doctor makes his way to the bed and looks around for somewhere convenient to hang his cane. The TARDIS obligingly provides a hook; this headboard was made with other needs in mind. He sits in the space left under Jack's outflung hand and then notices one glittering eye watching him.

"Even here," Jack mumbles, rolling to face away from him.

"What?"

"Following me, even here. I thought, if I could find somewhere nearby to hide, you'd… you'd be alright."

Disconcerted, the Doctor does not reach for him. "I'm alright."

"No, you're not," Jack says, sounding hollow and weary. "But neither am I."

"I can see that. Have you been here all this time? I didn't start looking until yesterday, but no one has mentioned seeing you." Gone out in the morning, come home at night, stayed nearby; Jack had been right enough in his supposition. It took the Doctor much longer than it ought to have to realise he had not returned to his normal life about the town.

"Every day," Jack sighs. "Then back home to play house. Keep up appearances. Keep you from wearing out the rugs."

"So you're in here looking for… what? Peace? Comfort? Like _this?_ Jack, come home."

"I'm looking for home," Jack says, very quietly.

The man who makes a home for others, unmoored again and drifting. "I'd thought Barnable -"

"I love him, of course. But he's…" Back still turned, Jack shakes his head and curls tighter. "There was a man once who promised me… more than empty time. A thread to follow. I'm trying to remember him."

A pained noise escapes the Doctor at that. Everything he has done, so much for love of Jack; but somehow they have ended up here, too much past between them, stumbling toward a future that will divide them forever. "I'm still the same person, Jack."

"Are you?" Jack asks bitterly. " _He_ wanted me."

Giving up holding himself back, the Doctor reaches out and slides a hand down Jack's back, pale and inviting amid the disarranged bedclothes, strong and steady and always, _always_ wanted. "I want you."

Shivering even as he leans into the Doctor's touch, Jack shakes his head. "You want the thing inside me, the fixed point, the fire. You want -"

"All of you, Jack," the Doctor insists, and pushes him flat into the mattress. Surprised, Jack flails for a moment then tries to push himself back up, not quite hard enough to succeed. "Do you want me to go?"

Jack stills; then he reaches under the pillow and produces a length of rope. The Doctor recoils, hand leaping from Jack's back as if burned, and Jack rolls to see him. "I couldn't find my cuffs," he says, face unreadable. "But I thought… maybe we could try again. Do it right. Please, Doctor. It's _not_ wrong. I'm not."

"You're not," the Doctor agrees. He hadn't showed it at the time, but it must have hurt terribly, both of them telling him how wrong he was. "You are not wrong. Your needs are not wrong. But… _I_ was wrong, so recently. I can't yet, Jack, I'm sorry."

"I understand," he says, staring at the ceiling, and the Doctor wants to weep at the hopeless resignation in his voice. "It's fine, I'll just -"

Stay here, trying to mend himself alone? The Doctor leans down to kiss his Captain quiet, and when his arms come up he pushes them over his head. "Hold on to the headboard, and don't let go."

"Ah," Jack says, as he does. "Just a coward, then."

The Doctor nods. "Just a coward." He has always loved seeing Jack like this, stretched out with leonine grace, the muscles of his arms and shoulders corded and shifting as he looks around for the adoration he knows he is due. Even before they were intimate, Jack would saunter into his line of sight and stretch ostentatiously, watching with smug satisfaction as the Doctor's eyes took the scenic route back to whatever he had been working on. “May I touch you?”

“Gutless lamp-licking bastard!” Jack raises a knee to kick at him awkwardly. “Haven’t you been listening? _Yes_ , the answer is _yes_.”

But he doesn't stop asking, and Jack doesn't stop trying to provoke him; but Jack also doesn't stop saying yes, eventually, and he never lets go the headboard. With every action that doesn't matter he pushes the Doctor away; with every refusal to go the Doctor says _yes, I want you, yes, I need you, you,_ you.

"May I lick your ear" becomes "may I bite your neck" turns into "may I suck your nipple" which has Jack laughing even as he roundly curses the Doctor, blue eyes flashing as he tosses his head fitfully.

"May I bite you," the Doctor says, laying a finger lightly on his chest, "here," and, "here," and, "here," and then Jack says _no_ , so he moves on. When he looks up, cheek to ever-beating heart, Jack is watching him, bemused.

"You really are asking."

"I really am asking." He stretches up to kiss his Captain's lips again, twisted in a sad half smile; laps at the fire of his mouth, sucks on his tongue until the sadness is gone and Jack is moaning beneath him again, bite-marked chest rising and falling irregularly. If the Doctor is moaning too, crouched low over his lover and aching for more contact, he doesn't intend to admit it. "May I remove your trousers?"

Jack knees him again, although it's more fond than annoyed. "Yes. Quit lollygagging."

"I'm not lollygagging, I'm _savouring_ ," the Doctor says, working Jack's trousers over his cock and off. Adjusting his own uncomfortable trousers and settling back next to Jack, the Doctor eyes all the newly exposed skin longingly and realises he has painted himself into an awkward corner. Jack is looking alarmingly thoughtful. "May I - may I touch you, Jack?" the Doctor attempts.

A hint of a smile dawns on Jack's face. "Touch me where?"

Closing his eyes briefly, the Doctor feels his face go up in flames. It _shouldn't_ be so hard, he knows this, but these particular words have never tripped obligingly from his tongue as they do for Jack. "Your cock," he forces out, his Captain’s satisfied grin not helping. "May I touch your cock?"

"Please do," Jack says, trailing off into an outrageously salacious moan as the Doctor's eager hand closes on his cock. His hips push sinuously upward as if he doesn't trust his lover to take care of him properly. The Doctor kisses his belly, lays his forehead down against the burning beating stillness of him, the blood under his skin always running, never changing. Watching the firm length of Jack's cock appear and disappear in his fist, darker head peeking through at the top of the stroke, he feels his way to Jack's mouth with his right hand, pushes two fingers inside and suddenly feels at distinct danger of losing himself in his trousers. He swallows, and lifts his head.

"Captain, may I… use my mouth, on your cock?"

Jack looks at him silently. Finally he arches an eyebrow and runs his tongue between the Doctor's fingers; the Doctor shivers and pulls his hand away self-consciously. Jack pauses, licks his lips, and says very carefully, "No."

The Doctor whimpers.

He tries to call back the damning noise but Jack has already heard it. He doesn't look amused or triumphant; he looks resigned and regretful, and the Doctor doesn't want to think about why, so he ignores the aching emptiness inside his mouth and resolves not to ask again. Instead he lowers his head and kisses his way meticulously back up Jack's chest. It is the closest to worship, the closest to divinity he ever comes, containing within himself a little piece of eternity incarnate. The need for it has been growing in him all unheeded; by him, at least, if not by Jack. "May I," he murmurs into the hollow of Jack's collarbone, "distract you utterly, Captain?"

"You may," Jack sighs, and lets the tension flow away, lets himself respond to the Doctor's hands and lips and tongue. The game has shifted again as it does between them, the reins held now in Jack's fingers clenched tight on the headboard made for him, made for this. He writhes as the Doctor plays him, calls up the music of desire from his throat, curses spilling out as often as endearments. The bite marks are already fading from his chest so the Doctor adds new ones, then stands to push his own trousers out of the way, lays down and presses his cock against his Captain's hip with a groan of relief. Jack laughs, the sound like a halo of fire bathing his senses, bucks against him and he's not going to last any time at _all_ at this rate -

Jack's laughter turns back to moans as the Doctor's hand returns to his cock slick with oil and the Doctor's mouth comes down on his, hard and demanding. When he finally asks, "Jack, will you come for me?" the Doctor can tell he wants to say _no_ , wants to drop his fingers open like a sprung lock, tear himself away and deny the Doctor the satisfaction - but not more than he wants to finish this thing between them and make them whole again. So instead he twists his hips so the Doctor's hand is stroking both of them at once, tongue filling the Doctor's mouth just the way he wants, _oh_ , the way he _needs_ \- and he is lost, crying out as he spills over Jack and the damnable bedsheets he finds comforting against all sense - and only then does his Captain allow himself to let go.

Slowing his hand, the Doctor coaxes him through it as best he can, covers his face with gentle kisses until Jack opens his eyes again. Jack kisses him, and tugs him close, and holds him, silent, safe here at the centre of it all; although he would rather never have seen this place again, not in all the days left to him.

-+-+-+-

 


	27. Into the dark

Jack had thought at first the Doctor had been toying with him, mocking him; denying him what he needed, ignoring all he has painstakingly tried to explain. It wouldn't have been out of place. He has been at Jack's heels the last week, need and loneliness driving jealousy and cattiness to the point he has even tried to push Jack and Barnable apart. But he had been damaged too, by his failure in the duty of care he takes so seriously, and had needed to hear the consent Jack needs him, sometimes, to take as read. And then it had become something else entirely, and Jack still isn't quite sure what to do but he can't bear to ever see the Doctor so broken and desperate again, in the grip of an addiction he never should have allowed. By the time the Doctor wakes the next morning, Jack has a plan. He tries it out on Barnable first, after the Doctor leaves for the morning.

"Barney. I'm going away for a while."

"Again?" Barnable says, looking up from a trayful of small tools in the workroom.

"For longer," Jack clarifies.

Barnable frowns. "You'll take provisions this time." It isn't a question. Barnable doesn't hold with unnecessary bodily discomfort. Jack nods. "Aleesa's second birthday is Thursday week." His first grandniece, and Jack an honorary uncle to the children as well; but he has other responsibilities first.

"I think much longer than that," Jack says gently.

All the calm assurance, all the willing acceptance Barnable has been trying to project falls away as his face crumples in distress. "But _why?_ "

Jack reaches for him, aching to smooth away the lines at brow and mouth and restore his smile, futile as the effort may be at the moment. It turns out to be harder than he expected to explain in a way that does not leave Barnable blaming the Doctor for this, too.

-+-+-

When the Doctor returns home, it is not to an empty house - or at least never for long. That assurance has been a constant relief to him since Jack returned, that beacon of his blazing bright somewhere nearby, even when not quite in reach. Even hidden in the TARDIS. Today he is at home, though, curled up with Barnable on the couch, practically wrapped around him -! Haven't they asked enough of his limited tolerance for touch lately? The Doctor is well able to meet any of Jack's physical needs. Scowling down at them - at Jack - the Doctor accuses, "You're being pushy again."

"You're being an arse again." It's Jack's line, but not his voice. Startled from his moment of jealousy, the Doctor stares at Barnable, glaring fiercely at him from his place tucked below Jack's chin.

Jack looks just as surprised, but before anyone can continue an argument he takes a breath and says, "I'm going away again, for a while." And then, practically before he finishes speaking, he is leaping to his feet to place a steadying hand under the Doctor's elbow as all the blood drains from his face.

Had he really thought there were no new ways to hurt each other? The Doctor's stomach seems to change trajectory without the rest of him, swooping into a bottomless dive, thrown out of orbit into the dark. "No," he tries; Jack just shakes his head. " _Please_ , no," he tries harder, but Jack seems susceptible neither to orders nor pleas. " _I'm_ not to abandon _you_ , but you'll leave whenever you like?"

But that is a step too far. Expression closing off, Jack sucks a breath through his teeth. “You know why I have to.”

He has been doing a very thorough job _not_ knowing, actually, ignoring it with a boundless will that has seen him through many other predicaments; but the place his Captain takes a stand is where his will comes to die. “Please don’t go, Jack,” he begs, pride discarded. “It's hardly going to get _worse_ , I'm not going to do anything that would make it worse - everyone will miss you, how will we -  surely you wouldn’t leave _Barnable?_ ” Suddenly drowning, the Doctor realises the other option is that he is _taking Barnable with him_ -!

But Jack turns away, eyes closing, arms crossed tight across his chest. “That’s fighting dirty, Doctor.”

“He’s right there!” the Doctor says defensively, stabbing a finger toward their silent partner on the sofa. He and Barnable seem to have got in the habit of arguing with Jack one at a time, recently. Maybe it was cruel of him - neither of them ever do forget that clock ticking down - but Jack is being cruel _too_. “You were practically plastered over him a moment ago. You’d just walk away?” Jack just shakes his head again, refusing to engage. Shoulders falling, the Doctor stretches out a hand tentatively to touch his lover’s shoulder; Jack turns to look at him again, sidelong. “Please, Jack, don’t go.”

He can’t help having the eyes he has, can he? He can’t help holding Jack’s heart in the palm of his hand; Jack handed it over willingly, after all, and he has tried to give it back more than once. But his Captain just stares at him, which isn’t right. He should look away, or kiss him, or get angry, or tell the Doctor not to look at him _like that_. Not this - nothing.

“This, right here, isn’t it,” Jack murmurs, nonsensically. Taking a deep breath, he deliberately uncrosses his arms, shoves his hands in his pockets, and says calmly, “Those eyes again, Doctor. I hate when you do that. I don’t actually expect you to stop, but I want you to know that I hate it. And I promised to do better at stopping you.” Maybe he had, but _now_ is not the time to remember it -! “So, no. No manipulating me with sad puppy eyes. And no, I won’t stay _for Barney_. He is quite self-sufficient and shockingly well adjusted for having lived with _us_ for most of his life. I’m not leaving the planet. I’ll be back. But I _am_ going.”

The pure relief that courses through him turns his knee to jelly and he sags against his cane. “I thought -”

“Stupid,” Jack says fondly, wraps arms around him and kisses his hair. “I’m not going any further than I have to. Mine to love, mine to protect, mine to save from yourself.”

“All yours,” the Doctor sighs, face pressed to Jack’s neck, right hand clenched tight in the back of his jumper, not intending to let go before he is forced to. Not the final parting, not yet. “There’s no one else, Jack.”

“No one…?”

Committed now, and suddenly unwilling to let Jack continue thinking himself a shabby second, he looks up to meet Jack’s wary eyes. “No one else I’m looking for. No one else I’ve ever wished you were. Just you.”

Jack shakes his head, not quite willing to take his word over centuries of experience; but he holds the Doctor tight, and nuzzles his cheek and kisses his temple and he is, after all, quite singular in all the universe. He will believe eventually. Barnable slips in under the Doctor's unoccupied arm and he pulls him close, relieved beyond measure that he is not to be left to face the darkness alone yet.

In bed that night, resisting sleep so as to more completely experience the last night warmed by his own personal furnace for who knows how long, the Doctor asks, “Where will you go?”

“Not so far,” Jack says, with a vague wave of his hand. The dim light flows over his shoulder, the curve of his neck to his jaw, gleams dully in his hair. “Out in the forest, maybe. Someone needs to keep an eye on it. See if Dashel wouldn't mind some time at home.” Laying his head back against the Doctor’s shoulder, he adds, “Trees like me. I know how to stand still.”

“Should’ve known you’d be flirting with trees again.”

Teeth press gently against his collarbone in mock remonstrance. “In any case, I’m going, and whilst I’m gone you get your head out of your arse, and when I get back don’t you dare _ask_ me anything. I want the best welcome home kiss I’ve ever had, and my back catalogue is _extensive_.”

The Doctor would say something clever, or grumpy, or maybe even beg Jack not to go again although he knows it would be futile, if Jack hadn’t caught his lips in demonstration, nipping and pulling at his bottom lip, teasing the Doctor’s tongue with his own. He moans instead, and lets Jack pull him in, willing to do as his Captain desires; more than willing to prolong the parting. The fire of his fingers, the searing heat of his tongue in the Doctor’s mouth is so good he can almost forget the fear for a few minutes, but when Jack ducks his head to set kisses like a necklace of burning coals around the Doctor's neck, it all comes rushing back.

"Must you?" he whispers.

Jack doesn't answer at first, just presses closer; so close the rumble of his voice is more felt than heard. “Have you told me _everything else_ yet?”

The Doctor had intended that very, very literally. He suspects Jack does not mean it quite that way, but still it seems to curdle the air in his lungs. _Are you ready for the end?_ “No.”

“Then,” Jack says, “yes.”

Out of options, the Doctor cards his lover’s hair with gentle fingertips, rubs his scalp, drinks in the heady smell of him; tries to store away every moment twice over that he might sustain himself with the remembered light of the sun he will soon be parted from.

-+-+-

“Shockingly well adjusted, am I?”

Standing at the edge of the town, Jack is considering his path. West through the forest for today, then north, toward whatever body of water he has seen glinting in the distance on the rare days he is somewhere with a good view when the sun comes up.

“Considering your influences, yes,” Jack replies, reaching out to pull Barnable close. His hat and coat are dusted with snowflakes, white on dark here at the edge of the town’s light; he always wears colour, but in the darkness it fades away like so many other distinctions. Jack is looking forward to the fading. When he has worn away the petty differences, the minor annoyances, the insecurities, when he has been away long enough for the addiction to dissipate, the important things will remain: here, and now, and home, and love. “You’re the reason we’ve been able to stay together so long, you know. We put a lot on you, Barney, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Barnable says, pressing close for a moment more before he pulls away. “My life’s work, facilitating you two.”

Far too grateful for the time and effort to say _rubbish way to spend a life_ , still Jack thinks it. “I’m sorry,” he says again, quietly, instead.

“For what?” Smiling up at him, Barnable takes Jack’s hand in his own mittened one. “It’s been hard at times, but what great work isn’t? You’ve never asked a thing from me I didn’t want to give. My little mark on the universe.”

Jack swallows through a throat suddenly too tight to speak. “I’m not -”

“The man who fell from the sky. The Doctor’s Captain, the Immortal Wanderer. And.” He takes a step so he can see Jack’s face. “My love. All these things, Captain.” He tugs lightly at Jack's lapels with his free hand to pull Jack’s forehead down to his. “You seem to think that last one is important.”

“Oh, gods, bright eyes -” Voice catching, Jack closes his eyes. He can’t bear that Barnable should think he would toss aside that love. “What am I doing? I don’t _want_ to go, you know I don’t want to go, don’t you?”

“You do, a little bit,” Barnable disagrees gently. “You don’t want to leave me. But you want to leave the Doctor, for a while. I’m not surprised you need breaks from each other, Captain, I’m surprised you lasted this long. You know all the best ways to hurt each other. I used to envy you, sometimes, but I think maybe you love each other too much.”

“He has ruined my life; it's the only thing to do.” Jack tries to laugh, but it doesn't come out quite right; he turns away from the pity in Barnable's eyes. “What else is there to do?”

“Nothing, I suppose,” Barnable says softly, but he grips Jack's hand like a lifeline. “Did he, really?”

“I wish I'd never met him. And I hope I'm never rid of him. Lots of good reasons we don’t stay together this long, but the biggest one… if I'm with him for the rest of _his_ life, I still have all the rest of _my_ life to go, at the end of it.” Jack sighs. “But if he's bound and determined to _stay put_ for a while, there's nothing keeping me from staying too. I'm not losing out on any potential future meetings if he's not traveling anyway.”

“Nothing but -”

“Nothing but the fact we can't stand each other after a few years, yeah.” Turning back, he touches Barnable's face gently, strokes his cheek with his thumb. “But I've so little time with you.”

“I'll be here, Captain,” Barnable says with a tender smile, leaning into Jack's touch. “I'll wait. I'll take care of him for you.”

Shaking his head, Jack bends forward to kiss his forehead, his nose, his lips, feather-light and undemanding. “Take care of yourself. For me.”

-+-+-+-

 


	28. Fading closeness

He can’t sleep. He _daren’t_ sleep. His stable orbit of decades has been disrupted, sending him reeling out into the dark, away from his sun, and he daren’t blink. Not that he could ever lose track of its blazing brilliance, but the idea of looking away and missing a moment of the fading closeness sends a shiver of ice through his nerves.

Jack was right to go, but the Doctor would rather prefer to be facing Daleks than this. He would rather shovel snow. He would rather be _bored_.

By the time Barnable wakes in the morning, he _is_ bored; sat despondently in his chair before the fire, books discarded in favour of a mental tally of his mishandling of recent events, tea gone cold beside him.

“You really can’t sleep without him, can you,” Barnable says sympathetically, perching on the sofa.

“I suppose I’ll have to, at some point. Done it before.”

“Could you, after… after the last time? When he left?”

The Doctor scowls at the fire. _He_ never would have chosen to tell Barnable any of it; that was all Jack’s mishandling. “No. I’d fight it for days, and then… more or less pass out. Or go find him again. Somewhere else in his timeline.”

Barnable sighs. “Have pity on an old man, Doctor, and try to pass out on the bed. I’ll have to call for help if I have to move you.”

“Hah! I’ll give you old. Just because your tree-climbing days were cut short -”

“I was rather good at it,” Barnable agrees, only slightly wistful for a pastime nearly twenty years gone. “Still -”

Distracted now from his own misery, the Doctor notices a curious thing. Rather than cause distress, Jack’s absence seems to have lifted a previously unnoticed tension from Barnable. “Why are you happy he’s gone?” the Doctor says. Barnable stiffens and he backpedals slightly. “Not happy. Relieved? I’m the monster here.”

“You’re the Doctor,” Barnable says, unhelpfully.

“You were quite recently very upset about that.”

“You’re…” He waves a hand. “I already… You’re the Doctor, and it’s easier to accept that your mistakes might be… of similar scale.” To his hagiography, presumably; he can't escape it. He hadn’t thought Barnable, of all people, subscribed to any such view of him. “I’ve just been having more trouble… I need some time to think.”

He and Jack have always had a very _human_ relationship; for all his tricks and talents, for all his fierce love, the Doctor cannot provide that. Barnable has never been unaware of Jack's oddities - he was there the night he fell from the sky, after all - but he has, for the most part, ignored them. “He’s been human, for you.”

Barnable looks more troubled, at that. “I would never want him to diminish himself for me.”

“You humans, either you think you’re better than anyone or you think you’re not worth a basket of apples."

"I am worth at least two," Barnable says, not rising to the bait. "And a wheel of good cheese."

Curious, the Doctor asks, "And Jack?"

Barnable appears to consider it seriously, but not for long. He is well able to play at fairy stories. "Cloth-of-gold, perhaps. Or a kettle that never grows cold."

"Thank goodness I stole you both, then, as I haven't anything suitable."

Lips twitching up, Barnable shakes his head. "Is that how that happened. 'Ware lest someone come to steal us back."

"Yes, well." Mood soured, the Doctor looks back to the fire. "Someday."

With Jack gone, people start to come around and ring the bell at the door on a near-daily basis, which is intensely annoying. He hadn't realised Jack had even had time to make _arrangements_ , or whatever it is he has done; in any case it's no concern of his. The Doctor is busy, very busy trying to ignore the endless aching in his head, the disconcerting urge to go stumbling out into the forest. Barnable can deal with the people.

" _Doctor!_ "

"There's no call for that sort of tone," the Doctor grumbles, not looking up. A strangled, frustrated noise comes from Barnable's direction, and then with a sudden grinding clatter the table is three inches further from the Doctor, everything he was working on disarranged, falling in chiming shreds - his head jerks up and a cry of protest dies on his lips. Barnable is glaring at him across the table, shoulders set, arms braced on the table. His shirt cuffs are rolled up from work about the tower and his sleeveless jacket hangs open, embroidery gleaming in the lamplight; the chill seems to reach him more these days, or maybe he is cold for lack of Jack as well.

" _When_ ," he says, enunciating very carefully, "was the _last_ ," fails to hide the wince as he shakes out his right arm, "time you _slept_. Doctor."

"Just - the other day. I don't know. Why did you do that? You've broken my clockwork and hurt yourself." He had tried, and failed, to say _yesterday_ ; still, it's no sort of emergency. The Doctor looks away uncomfortably from his partner's penetrating gaze.

"Tamsin's come by to fetch the laundry again and you haven't any. You haven't so much as changed clothes in at least four days."

"Maybe he's come early," the Doctor suggests half-heartedly. "Why does it need fetching?"

Sighing, Barnable gives up trying to hide the pain as a self-defeating effort and rubs his shoulder gingerly. "Because I, as you've just pointed out, have an unreliable shoulder, and the Captain didn't want me hauling things I didn't have to. And you, Doctor, barely leave the tower lately. Get up, take a bath, and then for God's sake _go to bed_." He wanders away muttering under his breath, "Thousands of years old and he might as well be four, bucket in a blizzard would do more good, just _leave_ him where he passes out, see if I don't…" The Doctor is never quite sure whether these asides are meant to be audible to him.

There is a bath already drawn for him, and a nightshirt laid out, and once he's done that climbing into bed seems inescapable. But in the darkness all he can see is his sun receding, further and further from him in a terrifyingly real illustration of what he now realises has been simple fancy before; he has thought of their dance as an orbit but they have been either together or apart, for the most part quite suddenly. This slow tearing away is agonising.

When Barnable slips into the bed as well the Doctor reaches for him hesitantly, breath hitching in a sob he can't quite silence. Barnable doesn't pull away. "It's alright," he murmurs, "it's going to be alright. Go to sleep." He can in no way be mistaken for Jack's fixed steadiness, but the human warmth of him is a great comfort, and he lets the Doctor hold him tight until, finally, the last, loneliest Time Lord falls asleep.

Jack goes away and comes back, away and back, and the Doctor would give much to be unaware of each step he takes; much, but not enough, when the idea of sending Jack even further away seems to flatten him like a sudden cricket bat. Some days Barnable looks like he would happily give away an entire Time Lord to be rid of the anxious, _useless_ knowledge. Jack never comes back as far as the town.

"He always goes to the same place," the Doctor says one day, scowling towards it. "What does he want?"

Barnable shrugs. "Is he there today?"

"No. Tomorrow, probably." With a nod, Barnable wanders away. He has become more and more withdrawn as the weeks pass, doing what is necessary around the tower and spending the rest of his time out in the town or with family or weaving upstairs. He used to be _cheerful_. Sometimes the Doctor resents him for changing along with everything else.

Some days are all resentment. He finds he doesn't mind; it's better than desolation.

Barnable is gone early the next day, and when he returns just after tea his mood is different but not particularly improved. "You two," he sighs, and shakes his head, and slumps into a chair at the table. The Doctor nudges the teapot over to him, but instead of pouring it he warms his hands on it.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says, fairly certain both that the statement is relevant, and that he is; whatever it might be about. He usually is, when it starts out _you two_.

"I know," Barnable says, and pours his tea, and doesn't elaborate.

When Jack goes away this time, he keeps going. The Doctor quietly replaces the candle Barnable has left burning in the window in sympathetic magic, and tries not to count his steps.

-+-+-

“Barnable?” When there is no answer, the Doctor looks up from his work and tries a little louder. “Barnable?”

Faintly, the Doctor hears from upstairs, “Get it yourself!”

Briefly he considers sulking until someone does something about it, but on further reflection that seems unlikely to result in anything positive. It certainly hasn’t previously. Nothing seems to work right without Jack around to ease the rough edges. Setting his tools down, the Doctor scowls at the toys he is fixing. Not his favorite task, sometimes, although it does make the children happy; he gets bored, and then _things happen_. Nobody needs a dollhouse that’s bigger on the inside. He collapses the pocket dimension he had been painstakingly building with a flick of his fingers and pushes himself to his feet. It _is_ tea time, and apparently he has to get it himself today.

Someone should cook; there isn’t any food. In fact the food situation has been dodgy since Jack left six months ago. People used to just bring him food. It takes him until he is nearly done with his tea to consider that perhaps _someone_ means _him_. At a loss, the Doctor considers the kitchen. He opens his mouth to call for Barnable to help him, then shuts it when he realises that would defeat the purpose entirely. “Nothing to it,” he tells himself encouragingly. “Anyone can cook.”

When Barnable comes downstairs later, the Doctor has finished adding everything likely he found to the soup pot. “I can cook,” he declares proudly.

“Hm,” Barnable says doubtfully, lifting the lid and peeking inside. His lips twitch, then curve up in a reluctant smile. “It’s… a very good effort, Doctor. Thank you. Shall I go fetch some bread to go with it?”

When he returns he is carrying considerably more than a loaf of bread, but perhaps that is in service of rectifying the food situation in general. “How does one tell if a soup is done cooking?” the Doctor asks, watching his pot curiously from the table, fingers tapping. Breads rise and get brown, and meat changes colour, but soup seems to just bubble interminably.

“Poke the vegetables to see if they’re tender,” Barnable suggests, amused, “and taste it.” He hands over a spoon.

Cautiously, the Doctor takes a bit of soup, blows to cool it, and sips at it. He stares in dismay as Barnable slowly loses his composure: his lips twitch up unevenly, break into a grin just before he claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the snort of amusement. Torn between insult and gratification at the return of cheer between them, the Doctor admits, “This is awful.”

“I expect it’s salvageable,” Barnable assures him, still laughing. “Oh, Doctor, that face.” He tucks himself under the Doctor’s shoulder, arm about his waist, and the Doctor leans gratefully into him. Not at all a substitute for Jack, he is instead a very good Barnable.

“I only put in things I like,” the Doctor mutters, wondering where that went wrong. “That’s what you do, I’ve watched you.” Somewhere around the eggs, perhaps, or maybe it's the lingering feeling of radish and vivi root having it out in his sinuses.

“Doesn’t work that way with cooking any more than it does with people, Doctor. You need to balance things out.”

Of course they’re falling to pieces. It certainly isn’t the Doctor who knows how to hold people together. “You miss him too.”

“Of _course_ I miss him, what kind of egotistical, self-centered -” He cuts himself off and pulls away from the Doctor. “And I wouldn’t _have_ to if you two could just -” Wandering back to the food he brought, Barnable sighs and rubs his right hand on his trousers, a nervous habit well-ingrained after so many years. “If you were different people. I’m sorry, Doctor. It’s hard, some days.”

“I'm sure he misses you too,” the Doctor says, which again is not quite what he had intended to say.

“I know he does,” Barnable agrees, turning to watch him shrewdly. “Don't imagine he doesn't miss you, too.” He had been imagining just that, of course. Barnable shakes his head. “For a telepathic alien who's known him all his life you are surprisingly stupid about him sometimes.”

“Thank you for staying,” the Doctor says with unusual sincerity. Barnable smiles ruefully as he sets about salvaging the soup.

-+-+-

“Barnable? Is that you?” Daft question; who else would be making noise upstairs in the tower? Only it is nearly sunrise with no sign of him, which is unusual enough the Doctor had thought him awake and out of the house early, instead. He doesn’t answer, and the noise stops - and there _was_ that time with the Cybermen -

No. They weren’t in the tower then, and they aren’t now.

Still, the Doctor climbs the stairs with a great deal more speed and caution both than usual. He peers around the small - and empty - first floor landing suspiciously, then pushes open Barnable’s door. “Barnable? Are you -”

The room is dark, warmed but not lit by the fire downstairs; Barnable, with his dark adapted eyes, doesn’t feel quite the same need for a constant light source as the Doctor and Jack do. The man in question is leant over the side of his bed, one arm dangling, head hanging limply. “Put that out,” he growls.

The Doctor shields his lamp with his hand. “What are you doing?”

Waving his dangling hand listlessly, Barnable says, “What does it look like I’m doing?” in a tone of voice that would have been accompanied by stronger wording from Jack. Then again, usually when he asks Jack that question what he actually means is something more along the lines of _why are you doing the ridiculous thing you’re doing?_

“I really couldn’t say.”

Barnable sighs. “I was trying to reach the bin.”

As he takes a few steps into the room, the Doctor’s lamp illuminates the scene more clearly. Barnable, sprawled limp and unmoving, still in bed in the dark at midday; the bin he keeps near the bed, tipped on its side and rolled out of reach which was probably the noise he heard; the wet bit of rug below Barnable’s head, and the smell of bile and stomach acid now reaching the Doctor’s nose. _Oh_. “Migraine?”

“ _Yes_ , iss a migraine,” Barnable groans, words slightly slurred. “When has it ever not been a migraine?”

“I have to ask,” the Doctor points out, making his way to the bed. Setting his lamp on the dresser, he lifts Barnable carefully back into bed and sits beside him, tugs the blanket over his shoulders. “It might be your appendix one day.”

“My what?”

“Appendix. Little ticking time bomb of a vestigial organ humans seem to have got stuck with?”

“Don’t think we have those anymore,” Barnable mumbles into his pillows.

“Oh,” the Doctor says, unaccountably relieved. “Yes, I suppose that would be one of the first things you’d get rid of. Still, I have to ask.” He fusses with the blankets and then the pillows until Barnable shoves him away.

“I don’t need _arranging_ , go ‘way and let me die.”

“You’re not dying,” the Doctor says in a perfectly calm and composed voice that just happens to crack in the middle of a word.

Freeing an arm from the blankets, Barnable lays it across the Doctor’s waist and curls around him. “No, ‘m not dying. I’m sorry. It’s a bad one. Will you put me to sleep?”

After that conversation? “Will you - can you - come downstairs? So I can look in on you?”

“Prob’ly.” He pauses, and, the Doctor suspects, cracks an eye open experimentally. “Yes. So long’s you put out the lights.”

They make it downstairs, leaning on each other, and Barnable burrows into the big bed - on Jack’s side, of course, and although the Doctor can’t begrudge him the comfort of the smell of their absent Captain he mourns the loss of a little more of the lingering reminder. He heroically resists arranging Barnable’s haphazard alignment, and kisses his forehead, and sends him to sleep, and goes back upstairs to retrieve the rug for cleaning. For the rest of the day he goes quietly in and out although he feels himself ridiculous; reassuring himself that Barnable is sleeping peacefully and missing Jack fiercely in the silence.

-+-+-+-

 


	29. Walk in sunlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I love writing Jack and Tasha Lem. They are so spiky._

Jack wanders in great meandering arcs, away from town as far as he likes, then back; in case anyone has need of him, or topside starts sending visitors again, or - he doesn’t think too hard about other reasons he might need to come home. As much as Jack has claimed this separation is for the Doctor's wellbeing, it is for his own as well, and it is always hard to justify taking time for himself when mortal lives are passing by.

Secrets are a fact of life for a time traveler, an inevitable complication to any relationship attempted across unknown leaps of history. _Spoilers_ , as River delights in claiming. Jack can no longer believe the secrets the Doctor is keeping are that sort, or why would he promise to tell? Instead this is the sort he wants not to think about, the sort he won’t say even though he can see it causes Jack pain to run up against it over and over again. The sort of secret he has no proper right to keep, when it involves Jack. If it isn’t that he fails the Doctor badly, somewhere in his future, then _what?_

When he can resign himself to not knowing - then he can go home.

There is a particular ridge he returns to, south of the forest where the land begins its rise to the mountains, which Barnable has been up to with him a number of times; even the Doctor made the climb once. If they want him, he will be easy to find. But although he returns regularly and waits for a day each time, no one comes, and autumn passes. One day he is standing there at the edge, overlooking Christmas and all the Doctor’s little world here, when he feels eyes on him. Startled, Jack turns, searching the edge of the clearing. “Doctor?” he ventures, but it doesn’t feel like the Doctor.

Movement catches his eye, and Barnable steps out from the trees, bright hair unmistakable even in the darkness. “Just me, Captain,” he says, and Jack _runs_ , all the lonely, timeless days set aside to catch him up tight and safe in his arms.

“Bright eyes,” Jack whispers, and buries his face in Barnable’s hair, breathing in the scent of him, the smell of home. Arms wind around him as Barnable laughs, a startled, breathy noise; self-consciously Jack stops crushing him _quite_ so hard. “Sorry. Missed you.”

“Suppose I’ll do, then,” Barnable murmurs, left hand fisted in the back of Jack’s coat, right hand rubbing slowly up and down Jack’s back. Sighing, breath warm even through layers of clothes, he lays his head against Jack’s shoulder and doesn’t move even when Jack finally loosens his arms.

Abruptly worried, Jack tries to see his face. He had expected Barnable to slip away as soon as he let go. “What’s wrong, Barney?”

“Nothing,” he says too quickly. “Nothing like that. Only, a fancy took me, watching you there. You stand so still sometimes, like you’re part of the ground, like you're a statue carved from the roots of the mountains. You're older than the trees, and someday… Someday you'll be older than the mountains.”

Exhaling carefully, Jack tries to remember how to fix this. He has lost not a few lovers to this particular fancy. “It's hard to think about, I know,” he says carefully. “But I'm still -”

“Don't be daft, Captain,” Barnable snaps. He pulls away to frown at Jack. “I grew up in a world where a barely-aging alien has lived in the bell tower of my town for better than three centuries, and I've lived with the both of you for half my life. It’s not hard for _me_.” He looks away, out into the dark sky. “You looked so alone.”

“Sometimes I am,” Jack admits. “Sometimes the days blend together and I hardly notice; sometimes it’s more than I can bear. But not here. Not now, bright eyes, not right now.” Gently, he tugs Barnable close again. “Drives me mad to think about. But all we have is now, all I have as much as anyone else, and I’ll fight for it with everything in me.”

“Me too,” Barnable whispers; Jack can barely hear it, but like the both of them on this windswept ridge, it is there. “Won’t you come home,” he says, after a minute or a few, as if he already knows the answer.

“If you need me.”

“If the Doctor needs you?”

Jack shakes his head. “He doesn’t. And if he thinks he does, he needs the time away to remember that he doesn’t.” Leaving the Doctor for a while is an unavoidable part of life; leaving Barnable, on the other hand, fragile, mortal, Barnable - “Do you need me?” Jack isn't sure what answer he is hoping for.

“Today I did,” Barnable says, still not really answering. “Don't stay away too long.”

He stays with Jack to watch the sun rise and set over the sea of trees, and the light sets him ablaze in a glory Jack has never seen before. He should be somewhere he can walk in sunlight all his days, and see the stars, and be loved by more than two lonely old men. Jack goes with him as far as the edge of the forest, hugs him hard and kisses his forehead, and lets him go, back to warmth and light and the Doctor. Back home.

-+-+-

With a vague feeling of being surplus to requirements, Jack begins to wander further afield after that. They don't need him back - in fact Barnable's visit suggests he ought to stay away - and there are more forests to see, more towns to explore, more people to meet, more mountains to climb. Some days he barely thinks of home at all; some days he can't remember why he left. Some days he can still see the look in the Doctor's eyes when he came back the first time, needy and relieved and utterly uninterested in why Jack had gone in the first place, willing to lie and cheat and promise anything to keep him from going again, and he wants to burn it all down and start over and they never can, they never can.

One foot in front of the other.

Sunrise in the forest is impossible to miss, a hundred thousand trees unfurling their needles into leaves to catch every bit of light in a great sussurating shudder; but in the mountains, Jack finds, it is far too easy to lose track of time. A single pole of sunlight to mark each noon, often as not blocked by the nearest ridge or peak, and only the passage of Trenzalore’s three tiny moons to count the time for the remainder of each day. Jack makes a point not to watch them, most days. He wanders lost in shadows, trying to find the stillness inside. If he is still enough, steady enough for Time to brace itself on as the Doctor says, shouldn’t he be steady enough to anchor his own mind? But instead his mind skitters sideways when he tries to pin it down, rolls nauseatingly when he tries to settle the disarray left by the shifting weight of trauma. The thing the Doctor sees in him has only rarely been any use to Jack.

One day - night - at some particular moment of darkness, in a longer period of darkness - Jack sits at the edge of a ledge, looking out over winding ridges and thin valleys, sinuous traceries of snow highlighting the broken contours of a land unsuitable for human settlement. The soles of his boots are wearing thin. They dangle in midair as Jack leans in to the swooping vertigo of height without borders, flings his arms out to the sides and lays back so that he sees only the murky black sky, all the ground in all the world hidden behind his back.

“Captain Jack Harkness,” says a voice, and Jack nearly flings himself to another death in startled reaction.

“Moth-eaten mother of demons! Are you _trying_ to kill me?” He glares furiously at the glowing avatar that has invaded his solitude, fingers white-knuckled around the sharp edge at his knees. “That’s a hell of a climb to get back up here. What do you want, Tasha Lem?"

"Nothing you can give me," she says, mouth fixed in her customary smirk.

"I'm a many-talented man," Jack points out, consciously relaxing his hands. "But I can't help you if you've sworn off everything good in life."

“My tastes are more discerning.”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, yeah? Hey, if there’s something that tastes better than _me_ on this benighted planet I want to meet it.” She bothers them every few years - or the Doctor bothers her, Jack isn’t sure which - but he hasn’t heard any real news from topside in quite a while. “How’s your little zombie Dalek army doing lately, anyway?”

“Well enough your husband doesn’t have nightmares anymore.” _Touché_.

“We’re not married in the eyes of your Church,” Jack points out for the sake of accuracy, but the reminder is enough to blunt the edge of his reflexive belligerence. “Is everything… alright? Do they need me to come home?”

"I bear no message for you, but neither did I ask for one," she admits. "Your husband is, the Doctor says, _as well as he ever is_. I did ask that, when he seemed out of sorts. But apparently you are the source of the current difficulty." Watching him curiously, the Mother Superious shakes her head. "Whatever sense it is that allows the Doctor to locate you at will, we cannot duplicate it."

Jack hardly dares consider the possibility. "Did it seem _at will?_ "

"It did not. Our apologies for the imprecision."

Hope flown almost before alighting, Jack sighs and rubs his face. "Alright. So you're here because…" He can't think of any likely reason, actually. "Need someone for a suicide mission? Or just to see if you can find me?"

"The latter, essentially."

"I'm not up here playing hide-and-seek."

"Hiding only," she agrees, smirk returning.

"Congratulations, you found me. So go away already. Thank you for the news," Jack adds, grudgingly, and Tasha nods. "Wait! Can you point me toward Wrenshall? I need new boots."

Brows drawing together, she offers unexpectedly, “We might transport you there.”

“I’m just burning time. No point saving it. But thanks.”

No message; but she hadn’t told the Doctor she was going to look for him. If she had - but that way lies madness, endless fodder for Jack’s insecurities. The Doctor keeps trying to lay them to rest without giving away any real information, _you haven’t failed me_ here and _there’s no one else_ there, but the only ones that truly reassure are the ones Jack can feel; the meaning written on his skin with teeth and fingernails, the shiver that re-tunes his bones to vibrate in harmony with that growling _mine_.

And if they were not the Captain and the Doctor, those would be enough. They _should_ be enough.

In the mountains, there are a hundred ways to wear a body down to stillness and silence and more to file away the rough armour covering a hurt centuries old. The sunrise, when he sees it, is harsh and piercing, and if he could only catch hold of the right facet of his soul and hold it up, perhaps it would boil away in the sudden light, perhaps the fault would be burnt out of him and he could fill the hole left with healthy stuff, the light of stars and the firmament between. The wind is keen and cutting, the ice chips away at him with a cold touch, and if he were a better sculptor these are all the tools he would need. But no matter how he breaks down his body, wears away his soul, he can’t find the right angle. Maybe the fault isn’t inside him at all but between them, somewhere in the interstice, the space he can’t close until they each heal separately.

Jack almost starts home more times than he can count, every time his _burning time_ comment worms its way in too close and all he can see is the short fuse of Barnable's life, lit and never ceasing in its smouldering. But without some indication it will be safe for the Doctor he always puts it off just a little longer, just another day; until the day the mountains catch him.

-+-+-

Jack gasps, and coughs, and feels frantically for his leg, and then realises he is in the TARDIS. The confusion is enough to short-circuit his brain for a moment; he stares blankly at the Doctor, leaning against the console with his arms crossed, staring down at him as he so often does, and wonders why it seems so dark. The TARDIS is as welcoming as ever, but Jack is fairly certain he has been living with the Doctor for thirty-odd years _not in the TARDIS_ , so, what…? Clearly he got himself killed in a creatively difficult way again.

But the Doctor who rescues him doesn’t wear a waistcoat, he thinks. And he would usually be hopping about by now, complaining about Jack not getting up. Instead he is shaking his head ruefully. “Timelines,” he says. “She wouldn’t let me touch this part of your timeline, back then. I suppose there’s always more rescuing to do.”

Finally the gears are starting to mesh. “You woke her up,” Jack says.

The Doctor nods; his proper Doctor, not the younger one he has to watch his words with. “Couldn’t find you any other way. We did try. But she doesn’t mind.” He pats the console fondly. “All in a good cause. I don’t suppose… no, best not…” Sighing, he turns away, lets his hand drift over all the familiar controls, levers and switches and knobs and buttons. “If it’s to be the last, at least it was worthwhile.”

Sitting up, Jack considers his lover in concern. This is very far from anything he would have thought to expect. “I’ve been gone too long. You’re drifting again. I’d hoped, with Barney around -” His breath chokes off as if a steel band had closed tight around his chest, but he forces the words out anyway. “Did something happen to Barney?”

Eyes wide, the Doctor whirls back to see him. “No! No, we’re well, Captain.” He bends down, hand reaching for Jack, and Jack grabs it gratefully, nearly pulling him off balance. “We’re fine. Barnable is fine. He didn’t want to give you an excuse to stay away longer.” And he has steadfastly refused to enter the TARDIS; a legacy, Jack suspects, of the day long ago that he waited, and the Doctor returned to him.

With a sigh of relief, Jack lets the Doctor go and climbs to his feet. To his immense relief, the Doctor shows no signs of distress at the loss of contact. “Alright. Good. Should I… Is it time to come home? Are you alright?” He doesn’t ask how long he’s been away; he doesn’t really want to know. Too long.

“We’re alright, really, Jack. Come back when you’re ready.” The Doctor looks around with a wistful smile. “It’s just been a long time since I flew her. Much longer since we last rescued you. Brings back memories.”

“You couldn’t get to this part of my timeline,” Jack says, taking advantage of the confiding mood; the Doctor nods. “But you went on.”

“Oh, yes. I told you, I keep coming back.” _For a long, long time_ , he had promised. It had been reassuring at the time, and reassuring for centuries, but suddenly seems less so.

“You said you _would_ keep coming back. That’s a little different from _I’ve already wandered through your future_.” The second one isn’t a promise. It was never a promise at all.

Looking away, the Doctor says, “Ah. Well, time travel.” It is neither apology nor explanation, just another deflection of a topic he suddenly won’t talk about anymore, and that familiar buzzing unsteadiness wells up in Jack's chest. _Where have you been, Doctor? What did you see?_ He can't go home just yet. The Doctor takes him back to what remains of his camp, and Jack promises to be careful, and the Doctor disappears in his TARDIS, back to Christmas or not Jack doesn’t know; but he will be there when Jack returns.

He had gone on - and on, and on, knowing the Doctor, and isn’t that an odd vision of Jack’s future. And eventually he had stopped and come back for Jack, waiting in stasis for him there on Ophicche, older and harder and sadder, and Jack… Jack has never quite felt he measured up, after that. To what, he doesn’t know. He had thought it a judgement of him, some failure in his future, but the more he learns the less well that fits.

 _No one else_ , he said.

Something else nags at him, something the Doctor had said? Something Jack thought? The feeling of displacement that attended him was very worrying, the way he seemed to drift even whilst piloting the TARDIS, but no, not that. Jack's confusion at the beginning, not knowing for a moment whether it was his Doctor or the younger one -

The thought clicks into place like a very subtle earthquake. Jack takes a careful breath in its wake.

The Doctor had gone - _to him_.

And he, then, is the younger Jack.

He weeps, first, and then he screams into the empty night until he no longer can, and then he curses without voice anything and everything he can think to curse. Including, most especially, his future self. Always there waiting, an impossible bar to measure himself against. And then he apologises, because if anything is clear in all this tangled mess it is that his future self finally does succeed in being what the Doctor needs, and Jack ought to be grateful he had got the Doctor back at all, even if things could never be the same between them.

All the secrets, all the silences, maybe they just amount to _you're not old enough yet;_ if so, the only way on is through. There is a lot of the Doctor still to come in his future, apparently, and he gets older every day.

When Jack breaks camp, he turns his face toward home.

-+-+-+-

 


	30. Each step follows from the last

“Barnable,” the Doctor whispers, excavating an arm from the cocoon of blankets. “Barnable?” It’s not that he wants to wake him up, exactly, just that he wants Barnable to be awake.

“Hmm,” Barnable says sleepily, shoves his arm toward the Doctor without bothering to open his eyes. The Doctor wriggles closer and wraps himself around the warm arm happily. The prospect of a cold night in a bed made for sharing is too much some days, and Barnable occasionally indulges him like this; the Doctor, in return, has had to learn not to attach himself in his sleep.

“Jack is coming home.”

Eyes a sudden glimmer in the darkness, Barnable regards him thoughtfully, abruptly more awake. “Is he?”

“He’s closer again. Every day this week.” Nine days ago the Doctor had woken the TARDIS for one last trip, one last rescue for his Captain after days of frantic distress, and for the last five he has been coming closer to Christmas every day.

“Come here,” Barnable says, rolling to his side and pulling at the Doctor gently to reel him in. He goes gladly, buries his nose in the very human solidity of his chest, the wool and sweat smell of him sharp and familiar, tucks himself in under the arm granting him access to the warm pocket of blankets. This comfort between them has grown gradually to something that feels unshakeable, sprouted from the wreckage of Barnable's faith in him and nursed by their mutual hope to provide a soft landing for their wandering immortal. “How many more days, do you think?”

“Three or four. If - if he is coming back. He may turn aside again.” There have been quite a few occasions over the last three years (two months nine days twenty one hours and forty minutes, each one of which he has felt pass) since Jack walked out the door when the Doctor has felt his blazing beacon returning, and not one of them have resulted in him coming home. At the beginning he came near often, but for years now he has stayed out in the wilderness, visiting other towns at need but not Christmas.

Barnable’s hand circles soothingly on his back and his breath is warm in the Doctor’s hair as he speaks. “I’ll go out and meet him. Unless you’d rather.” The Doctor shakes his head and Barnable laughs as he turns his own head to the side. “Your hair is frightful in the morning, Doctor. Goes everywhere.”

“‘S just friendly,” the Doctor mutters, embarrassed. A haircut might not go amiss, at that. “Yours looks like a haystack.”

“It’s not the one getting all in people’s mouths,” Barnable replies primly; then he nuzzles the Doctor’s forehead with a beard-covered cheek, purposefully against the grain.

“Fine,” the Doctor grumbles, trying not to laugh, “I’m going, see if I’m not.”

“You’re not.”

“Hush. Got more brains than you, takes longer to wake them up.”

“Oh, is _that_ why -”

Where's dignity when he needs it. “I’m going now.”

Barnable laughs and tightens his arm. “You’re not.” The Doctor sighs, content for now, and continues making no particular effort. It never has done him much good, arguing with Barnable.

-+-+-

Years. It has almost certainly been years since Jack has come this way, since he has been any closer than Wrenshall, seven miles to the south. He had never meant to be gone so long. He can feel it pulling him in and all his resistance has been worn away by his fight against the mountains; each step follows from the last like a drop of rain down a gust of wind, an unbounded, unimpeded slide toward the centre. Jack is going home.

He doesn’t take the road; he doesn’t want to meet anyone. Instead he keeps to the foothills, the rough land at the west of the valley, where the wood is still wild and the sounds of animals fall silent around him as he makes his clumsy human way through, the green glow of his phosphor lantern casting shifting shadows. He has no goal but home, so he is mildly surprised when his feet take him to a familiar rise, an edge of stone jutting out from the border between the forest and the managed woodland, and as he steps out onto the ledge overlooking Christmas he stops to catch his breath. The sun has been and gone already, but the view is beautiful even so; the snow lays bright and soft at the end of autumn, limning the contours of the world without the heavy drifts that will change the geography by spring.

A movement at the edge of his vision and Jack falls warily still; then his knees go weak and all the world goes wet and blurry as he recognises the figure standing still at the edge, watching him.

“I thought you might come this way,” Barnable says, and all Jack can say is, “Bright eyes.” It doesn’t seem quite fair, but Jack forgives him his composure when he opens his arms invitingly. His eyes shine in the darkness, so bright with all the reflected light of the world, and Jack wraps his arms tight around this beloved mortal and holds on like a man saved from drowning until the feel of Barnable pressed against him soaks in down to his bones. They walk the last two hours together, and every step breaks down a little more of the fear of loss Jack has walked with every day until he can almost forget he worried.

“There’s a party this evening,” Barnable says, smile audible but hidden from Jack’s eyes in the dim light.

Jack frowns. “Not Solstice already, is it?”

“A welcome home party,” Barnable clarifies, and his laughter sets the world back onto its proper axis. “For you. You’ve only been gone three years. I came all the way out here to make sure you didn’t give us a miss again.”

“No,” Jack says, walking a little faster. “No, I’m done. I’m home.”

-+-+-

After all the waiting, the attempts to lose himself in tinkering and daily life, the nights alone in his silent fortress, there _had_ come a time when that terrible awareness faded; when the Doctor felt himself in possession of a compass rather than being the quivering compass needle himself. Months ago, it was, but Jack had been so adamantly gone for so long the Doctor had thought it safer to wait until he made some sign toward coming home. Barnable had been furious, and on his own made the trip to Wrenshall and out among the nearer settlements to leave word for Jack if he should return for provisions; thankfully burning his anger out along the way.

And then the side of a mountain fell on Jack, and it _hurt_ , it hurt to take up that freedom again only to walk away from his sun so briefly regained and set himself back down in his grave. It still eats at him, that pain, coiled tight and small between his hearts, and now his sun is rising on the horizon and his TARDIS sits quiet and empty again and he has missed his chance to run.

So he hides in his tower, and lets the entire town slow Jack on his way home, which only succeeds in lending his approach a melodramatic sense of looming inevitability. The pause outside the stairs leaves the Doctor breathless; by contrast the last few steps, the flung open door, the cheerful call of “Honey, I’m home!” seem superimposed all atop each other.

The Doctor barely manages to look up before Jack is upon him like a mountain cascade, practically lifting him from his chair - _actually_ lifting him from his chair, laughing breathlessly as he crushes the Doctor to him far too close for a welcome home kiss to even be a possibility. “What time do you call this, then?” the Doctor protests weakly, struggling to free his arms and wrap them around his Captain in turn.

“About bloody time,” Jack suggests, deftly inserting himself between the Doctor and his chair and settling them both into it. “I’m tired and hungry and quite astonishingly filthy - and not in the usual way - so I won’t insist on an extensive welcome yet, but -”

“Incorrigible, is what you are,” the Doctor says, wrinkling his nose; but he leans in to brush Jack’s lips with his own and once he is there, of course… it is difficult to stop. One of them does, eventually; the Doctor finds a gratified little smile hovering about Jack’s lips. “You’ll muss me.”

Leaning back for a better view of his best clothes, Jack cocks his head curiously. “Didn’t realise it was that sort of party. You look gorgeous. My dashing Doctor. I’d fix your tie, but -” he holds out a hand far from clean, “I think I’d just make it worse.” Then he grins. “Will you wear the hat?”

Rolling his eyes, the Doctor forces himself to stand and makes a show of brushing down his rumpled waistcoat, mostly for an excuse to touch the fabric that glows like burnished copper when it catches the light - and try to stop thinking about touching Jack. “Yes, I’ll wear the hat.” If only to enjoy the novelty of someone, for once, _liking_ his hat.

-+-+-

Jack wears his own matching top hat in hopes of a triumphant entrance to his party with the Doctor on his arm, but by the time he is clean and dressed the Doctor is nowhere to be found. Barnable is not there either, having had, Jack suspects, an excess of faith in the Doctor's ability to not run away. Well, if he couldn't make a scene all by himself, his name wouldn't be Captain Jack Harkness.

He scarcely has to make an effort, it turns out. As soon as he appears on the steps of the tower a cry goes up, "Captain!" "Welcome home, Captain!" "Welcome back!" - and he always has loved an adoring crowd. For an hour he is caught fast as a fly in sap, stealing a moment here and there to stuff some bit of food in his mouth or lubricate his throat as it runs dry; everyone wants to hear where he has been.

Yes, the sun does stay up longer, further south; no, he found no easy way to get there. Yes, he made extensive notes for the maps. No, he doesn't know why the lake to the northwest is marked hazardous. Yes, he brought back plant specimens. No, he didn't encounter large predators. Yes, he missed them.

Laughing, Jack looks for the Doctor, but he is still hiding. When Jack insists on him to open the dancing, he appears with a credible attempt at willing, but although he presses close and smiles at Jack he remains taciturn and allows himself to be swept away in the press of dancers once the song is over.

After a few more, Barnable claims him for a slower dance. Nearly fifty, he is now, and suddenly Jack _notices_ : his hair seems prone to a wild wispiness where it escapes from beneath the colorful band of his hat, somewhere between the straw-gold it used to be and white, and although his bright eyes are the same as ever the lines beside them are deeper and more numerous. “I laid on a fire,” he says in Jack's ear, hands light against him. “You can take him home any time. Vessa will put me up for the night.”

Pulling back to see his face, Jack looks him over carefully. “You don't have to, love.”

“I know.” That beautiful, open smile. He has known hardship all his life, but that well of joy inside has never run dry; balm to the souls of two weary old men. “But I doubt I'd get any sleep. He's been pining for you.”

Glancing over to where the Doctor sits, grumpily refusing to dance after the first one, Jack sighs. “I can tell. It was longer than I'd hoped to be gone. I'm sorry.” With a smile, Jack turns back to his partner, winks at him cheerfully. “You still don't have to.”

Barnable just laughs at him, as usual. Then, to Jack's surprise, he stretches up to kiss him, chaste and sweet. “What was that for?” Jack asks, pleased, as he sweeps them around into a turn.

“I missed you too, of course. You don't look a day older. Really forever?” He sounds wistful.

“As far as we know. Don't worry about it, Barney.” Jack bends his head to kiss him again until Barnable pulls away.

“Don't be saying hello to everyone like that, Captain, you'll drive him mad.” There is a playful look in his eyes and he studiously avoids looking the Doctor's way.

Jack finds himself suddenly less interested in dancing. “Who am I to refuse a kiss from a beautiful young man?” He smiles down at Barnable as he rolls his eyes and tries not to look pleased at the compliment. “Besides, he's fun like that.” Barnable gives him a pointed look, and Jack laughs. “Pining for me, you say. Fine, maybe not today. But you’re always welcome,” he adds softly, in case a reminder is needed.

“I have everything I need.” That smile again, and Jack believes him.

Jack leaves the dance floor after that, makes his way to the Doctor. It is slow going, between the continuing greetings from people who know him and the curious questions from the younger children who have only heard of him, but he makes it eventually. The Doctor is scowling and looking away; on purpose, because Jack knows very well how he weighs on the Time Lord’s senses. “Come on, old man,” he coaxes, sitting down next to his lover. “One more dance for the night?” Wrapping an arm about the Doctor’s hunched shoulders, he leans close. “They’re going to think you’re mad at me.”

“I am!” the Doctor exclaims, possibly inadvertently; his teeth click together as he closes his mouth emphatically.

“Not for kissing Barney? I wasn’t pushy. I wouldn’t. He started it.”

Sighing, the Doctor leans against him. “I know you wouldn’t. I'm just a grumpy old man, Jack, go have your fun. They all wanted to do this for you. You're much beloved, here.”

“I’m not the only one.” Jack smiles thanks for the drinks that have appeared at his elbow along with a plate of tidbits, hands the Doctor his early cider and takes a long drink of his own ale, bright and sweet, made from the trees that are so much of the town’s livelihood. Then, standing, he holds his hands out for his lonely Time Lord, trying so hard to be patient. “Dance with me, love,” he offers, “and I’ll take you home, and they can have their party without us looking over their shoulders, and we can do whatever two old men can find to do, together.” The Doctor barks a laugh at his proposition, but takes his hands and lets himself be swung back into place.

-+-+-+-

 


	31. Shining again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _NSFW. ~~Reunited and it feels so good~~_

“- and snowy dreams of dawn!” Jack attempts, only slightly drunkenly, to waltz the Doctor a few more steps but they've made it back to the tower and there are stairs in the way. “Ow, oops. I love that song.” He steadies the Doctor, who is laughing at him.

“You like all the songs. And all the dancers.”

“Right you are.” Smiling happily, Jack doffs his hat to usher the Doctor into the warmth of home and hums as he hops down the stairs. As he is shrugging out of his coat a hand grabs the front of his waistcoat and the Doctor's mouth comes down on his, open and demanding, teeth nipping at his lip, tongue pressing in to muffle his startled exclamation. His back hits the wall and his coat falls to the floor, freeing his arms; he slides his hands inside the Doctor's coat, pulls his hips flush and is shocked to feel his erection already straining against his trousers. “Doctor -”

“Mine,” his lover growls, and bites Jack's lip. “ _Mine_.”

“Oh, gods,” Jack groans, laying his head back against the wall as the Doctor bites his jaw, sucks a bruise over his pulse. _Don’t ask me anything,_ he had said, _don’t you dare ask._ “I should go away more often -” He breaks off in a surprised squeak as the Doctor reaches between his legs and squeezes, not at all gently.

“You,” the Doctor says, teeth grazing his windpipe, fingers massaging firmly, “are _not_ ,” he brings his cane up behind Jack's back, pushes Jack's arms back to hook his elbows around it, “going _anywhere_. Hold that.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jack says, for lack of any other reasonable response. His heart is racing and the speed of the blood rushing to his cock has left him lightheaded. The cane is hard and unyielding against his spine, pushing his shoulders back flat against the cold wall, making his own quick breaths feel strange.

“Good.” Content with his predicament, the Doctor touches his cheek tenderly, then rids himself of his own coat. “You look very decorative like that. Hang a hat on you.” Jack suspects he is thinking of the handle of his cane at Jack's elbow, but his hand is toying with Jack's trouser buttons and Jack couldn't care less about his _elbow_.

“On which part of me?” he inquires with his best leer.

“Cheeky,” the Doctor admonishes; his next words send delighted shivers down Jack's spine. “Hush now, Captain.” True to Jack’s request, he is commanding now, not a question to be heard. His finger traces an extended figure eight around Jack’s buttons, smoothly sinuous over his aching cock, and Jack presses forward and moans, abandoning cheekiness, abandoning words, abandoning control. Whatever the Doctor wants is all he desires. “Just like that,” his lover murmurs approvingly, and chuckles. “You’re so _easy_ , Jack. So many things in life are so hard, but it’s easy, with you.”

Jack wants to agree and protest all at once: he _is too_ hard, he’s very hard, and something needs done about it; and of course he’s easy, the Doctor acting possessive always bypasses entirely any higher thought processes he might have had. But he is already past complicated responses like that so instead he parts his lips and leans forward, hoping for more kisses and less talking. The Doctor smiles lazily at him and obliges, chapped lips soft on his, tongue delving into his mouth languidly, tasting and licking, coaxing Jack’s tongue up to meet it - and then capturing it, sucking hard as his fingers curve down again to squeeze. Jack’s knees almost buckle and he groans loudly.

“You’ve been gone a long time, Captain,” the Doctor says conversationally, drawing back and watching as Jack catches his breath. Gratifyingly, he is beginning to look affected, a slight flush visible in the dim light, his eyes intent. “We throw you a welcome home party and what do you do? Leave this old man sitting alone whilst you surround yourself with pretty young things.” Which isn’t _at all_ how that went, but he is flicking buttons open and Jack doesn’t manage more than a single indignant look before his eyes fall closed as he moans at the feel of cool fingers pushing into his trousers. The Doctor fishes around until he manages to free Jack’s cock from his pants - which would have been easier if he had unbuttoned more than a couple of buttons - and then… and then nothing.

Jack opens his eyes to see the Doctor stepping away from him, looking him over with evident pleasure. “Very decorative,” he says, and takes his hat off, and laughs at the look on Jack’s face. He hangs it on the hat stand instead. “I wouldn’t. It would ruin the view.”

Speaking of _cheeky_.

Standing there, pressed to the wall, arms restrained, words taken away, the only bare skin his face and hands and cock, Jack feels more exposed than if he had been naked. Maybe it's the alcohol; maybe it's the look on the Doctor's face. As the Doctor watches him avidly, _hungrily_ , he can feel his face begin to burn; his cock twitches as he swallows nervously. It _has_ been a long time.

“I always knew where you were,” the Doctor says softly, raising a hand to trace his cheek, his jaw, brush a thumb against his lips. Jack touches it with his tongue, closes lips around to suck lightly when it pauses. “I’d find myself facing in your direction, without thinking about it. Like sunlight on my face.” Suddenly another cold finger touches his cock, sliding slickly down, and Jack whimpers, tries not to let his hips move lest he lose that tenuous contact. Like a single drop of cold rain trickling down the scalp, like a toothache, it concentrates the mind exquisitely. “Come here, Jack.” The finger is gone and Jack sighs, disappointed, but the Doctor leans in to kiss him, tugs him forward slowly as they make their way to the kitchen table. The Doctor turns him, hands at his hips, pushes him back so he leans on the table, then pulls a chair close and sits between his legs.

Jack can feel his breathing speed up again as the Doctor considers him. Strong hands push his thighs apart, fingers teasing, now lightly, now firm, perilously close to where his cock juts out lonely in the fire-warmed air, finally meeting in the center further down. Jack moans as the Doctor massages his balls through the warm wool of his trousers, spreads his legs wider though that makes the fabric pull tight. He can't lean back on his hands - he might drop the cane, and the Doctor told him to hold on to it - so he holds himself up, tense, breaths quick and shallow.

Lips curving in a delighted smile, the Doctor looks up at him. “You're desperate,” he observes, accurately. “Panting for it, already. For _me_. For a touch of my fingers. My tongue? Would you like that?” Jack nods frantically; the Doctor grins. “The feel of my mouth around you, _wet_ and _tight_ and _cool_ , because you’re made of _fire_ , Jack, you burn so bright -” His voice is low and lyrical, almost that thrilling growl he says _mine_ in, and he's trying to kill Jack, it's the only explanation. Jack stares at him, lightheaded, trying to remember to breathe, but he can't do much beside follow the words burning their way into his mind. Lowering his head so Jack can feel every stir of breath on his cock, the Doctor continues. “Just the way you fantasised, every one of those lonely nights, Jack, can you feel it?” He very nearly can.

The Doctor's fingers move down again, press hard; Jack gasps, and then he is keening helplessly, back arching, as the Doctor's mouth envelopes his cock, lips tight over teeth, tongue rubbing strong and slow, everything he has been imagining and more. Giving up his pose of nonchalance, the Doctor moans, fingers clutching at Jack's thighs, sliding up beneath his waistcoat, curving around to pull Jack's shirt from the back of his trousers. He sets his hand like cold fire at the base of Jack's spine.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” Jack gasps, out of practice and nearly out of his mind and forgetting to be silent, “oh _fuck_ -” The Doctor sucks hard, and Jack can feel it tugging on every shivering nerve, everything in him drawn down to a point of light where the Doctor's mouth is all the world - it has been _such a fucking long time_ \- Jack can just reach the Doctor's head. He touches it, strokes his hair gently with a shaking hand. “Doctor - Doctor -”

The Doctor pulls away, and Jack sobs in desperate anguish. “Don't let go that cane, Captain.”

“I won't, I won't, _please_ don't stop, please -!”

Spreading his knees apart, the Doctor forces Jack's legs wider around them, as wide as they can go and still hold him up; then he pops the last two buttons on Jack's fly. Jack's breath of relief turns into a choked exclamation as the Doctor sucks his cock back into his mouth, wraps his hand around it as well, and takes up a gradually increasing tempo that quickly drives Jack past rational thought.

Jack can feel his voice harsh in his throat; he doesn't know or care whether it is words or only cries, or what he might be saying. He doesn't try to touch the Doctor again, just watches his movements, cane arching his back as his eyes fall closed and open again in slow blinks. Lit by dim, flickering firelight, there is nothing but the Doctor in this darkness, nothing but his clever hand and hungry mouth, nothing but the soft rasp of his tongue, the smooth coolness of the inside of his cheek, the moans that rise through Jack like music.

Eyes falling closed again, Jack's head tips back as he gasps, and gasps again, every muscle drawing tense. “Doctor -” he says, and then he's coming, everything narrowing to that point of light inside, trying to get out. He jerks forward but the Doctor's head is firm against him, hands holding him steady against the table. Holding Jack’s cock in his mouth, the Doctor sucks gently, throat working as he swallows; he draws back when Jack stops shuddering and Jack groans, deep and heartfelt.

Arms circling his hips loosely, the Doctor lays the side of his face against Jack’s belly and sighs. “I missed you,” he says quietly. “Welcome home, Jack.”

“I. Yes,” Jack says, and laughs, still feeling scattered. “Glad to be back.” That was a welcome home kiss for the record books.

Sitting back, the Doctor looks up at him mock-sternly, eyes twinkling. “You were meant to be quiet, Captain.”

“I'm sorry. I forgot.”

“Not letting you touch me was punishment enough, I expect?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Jack agrees, relieved. The Doctor is perfectly capable of denying himself forever, if he really wants to drive Jack mad. “May I touch you now?”

“Yes,” the Doctor sighs, nuzzling back into him, “please do.” His hand comes up to take the cane; he lays it on the table as Jack carefully straightens his arms, stretches his shoulders. “And take your clothes off, you look ridiculous.”

Laughing, Jack runs his fingers through the Doctor’s hair, down his neck, rubbing his ear teasingly with his thumb. “ _Ridiculous_ is not how you were looking at me.”

“Oh? And how was I looking at you?”

Pushing the Doctor away slightly, Jack slips down to his lap. “Like you missed me.”

“Hm.” Eyes catching the firelight, the Doctor looks up at him.

“Like you love me.” The Doctor smiles, longing and lovely, and Jack bends to kiss the corners of his mouth, trace the bow of his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Like you’ve never seen anything so sexy.”

“I see your ego hasn’t suffered,” the Doctor mutters, rolling his eyes, but his hands on Jack’s back are reverent, circling slowly, dipping down into his trousers.

“Like the sun is finally shining again,” Jack whispers, and the Doctor closes his eyes with a little sob that takes Jack’s breath away. Nuzzling his face upward again, Jack kisses him gently, so gently, as his fingers work at the Doctor's waistcoat buttons. When he pulls away the Doctor remains silent, but he leans forward to lay his ear against Jack's chest, over his heart, and trembles. He hit too close to home with that last comment, maybe. “Come to bed,” Jack suggests. “Let me take care of you.”

The Doctor nods against him and Jack rises carefully, reaching back for one of his hands to keep skin contact. When he has the Doctor settled on the bed, Jack kisses him again, pushes his waistcoat off. “Won’t be a minute,” he says, and turns to the bathroom, returning mostly undressed, with a couple flannels and a glass of water for the Doctor. He thanks Jack, and drains it, and watches silently as Jack finishes shedding his shirt.

As he slowly undresses the Doctor, Jack murmurs, “Every time I slept, I dreamt of you. Every time I lit a fire I was back here with you.” He runs his hands over the Doctor’s chest, pushes his shirt off his shoulders, leans in to kiss the smooth skin between his hearts. “Every time I looked up, Doctor, I wanted to see you, I wished you were there.” Pushing him down onto the bed, Jack drags his trousers and pants down, pulls his boots off, lays him out naked beneath him, fragile and broken and beautiful. The Doctor watches him silently, that pain still in his eyes. “Be with me, Doctor, right here, don’t hide away.”

The Doctor sighs, and closes his eyes, and when he opens them Jack almost can't meet his gaze, it is so open. “I've been here,” he says, all the bitterness of the cold lonely days shining through. “I've waited.”

“I'm sorry," Jack says quietly. _Sorry I couldn't think of a better solution; sorry you had to stay. Sorry I’m the wrong Jack._ The Doctor doesn't speak, but reaches for him, and Jack climbs over him, covers him with the heat of his own skin, kisses him deeply. Then he tugs at the Doctor's shoulders. “Budge up.” As the Doctor resituates himself at the head of the bed Jack piles up pillows for him to lean on, pulls the blankets from under him, pushes him back into softness and settles himself between his lover's legs. “I missed you,” Jack says, kissing a line up his thigh. “I love you. There's nothing on this world or any other sexier than you.” He nudges the Doctor's legs up, slips his arms beneath, and leans forward to kiss his belly as fingers card gently through his hair. He looks up to see the Doctor’s eyes watching, dark and deep, and says, “There's no brighter light than you in my eyes.”

“My Jack,” the Doctor whispers, “make me no promises.” He moans as Jack licks his cock, half hard but quickly growing under Jack's attention, and moans again as Jack sucks him in, as he teases with the tip of his tongue; he moans, wordless, and his fingers clench in Jack’s hair, and his head falls back limply and he doesn't stop moaning. Angling his mouth carefully, Jack rubs the head of the Doctor's cock against the ridges of the roof of his mouth and watches his face, lost to the world. He presses his own hips hard against the bed, feeling an unexpected rising of desire. Fairly impressive for someone who's just had his brains sucked out through his cock - and then suddenly the Doctor is laughing breathlessly, pushing Jack away. “So crude,” although really he is in no position to criticise, “not at all, not at all.”

He's doing that telepathy thing again, Jack realises belatedly as his lover's cock slides from his lips. “I was enjoying that,” he protests halfheartedly, wiping his mouth on the Doctor's thigh.

“So was I,” the Doctor reassures him. “Come on, then -” He is pulling Jack up, wriggling down in the pillows slightly, and Jack finally catches on.

“Oh. _Oh._ Alright,” he says, grinning like the cat that got the canary. The Doctor's hands are hooked behind his knees, tugging encouragingly, as he leans to the side to rummage in the drawer for oil.

Holding a out hand peremptorily, the Doctor says, “Here,” and Jack pours some out for him, barely gets it closed before the Doctor’s fingers are pressing against him, slipping inside. Two, then almost immediately a third finger; hands gripping the headboard, Jack leans forward and groans, relaxing into the Doctor’s demands. Cool breath against his chest, and then the Doctor’s tongue on his nipple, his teeth nipping, tugging it into his mouth to suck. Crying out in surprise, Jack tenses, cock pressed to the Doctor’s belly and that’s alright, he could stay just like that, quick jerks of his hips to make it perfect - but then the fingers are gone and the Doctor is pushing him down and it’s his cock filling Jack like nothing else, like coming home, fire and ice and the lightning crackling through his nerves carving out a place within him.

“Mine,” the Doctor growls, teeth sunk into Jack's chest, cock sunk into his arse, fingers digging into his hips.

“Yours,” Jack gasps, “yes, Doctor, yours -” Nothing feels fragile now, all the time apart just another reason to hold tight _now_.

No second orgasm comes for Jack, he's not so lucky tonight, but he can feel very clearly when the Doctor does and it’s _brilliant_ ; the way he bucks up into Jack, cock thick and swollen, the way he cries out as Jack tilts his hips to take him just that little bit deeper, the way his hands lock around Jack's thighs, taking control of his movements, the way he calls Jack's name like nothing else matters as his cock pulses inside him.

Prying his fingers from the headboard, Jack curls against the Doctor's chest, arms about his shoulders, face buried in his hair. Neither of them move, but for quiet kisses pressed to what skin they can reach, for a long time.

-+-+-+-

 


	32. All the things you do

Waking slowly to the knowledge that he has slept well and long, in his own bed, and blissfully not alone, Jack tightens his arm around his escaping bedmate and mumbles, “G'morning, sunshine.” The Doctor laughs softly.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says, leaning down to kiss Jack’s forehead before he turns to go. “Rest all you need.” The pillows are warm and the bed is soft and Jack simply can’t muster the energy to object to him leaving. He stays there, utterly, indulgently lazy, for what feels like hours.

Finally succumbing to the lure of breakfast, he follows his nose and finds, to his bemusement, Barnable sat at his loom near the sofa and the Doctor in the kitchen, toasting bread and frying bacon. Blinking thoughtfully, he turns his head back and forth between them. “I see the scenery has improved. And the entertainment,” he adds, returning his gaze quizzically to the Doctor.

“We got a bit lonely,” Barnable says; the Doctor leans a hip against the counter and smiles at him.

“I am a hard act to follow,” Jack agrees. He gestures vaguely toward the kitchen. “And how did you accomplish… this?”

The Doctor scowls and Barnable laughs. “I was annoyed one day and told him to _get it himself_. He's an overachiever.”

“You _yelled_ it at me,” the Time Lord huffs. “And I thought… well, I thought you were right, actually, I was being a bit rubbish. I told you we were all right, Jack.”

“So you did,” Jack agrees, continuing into the kitchen to catch his lover in his arms and kiss him thoroughly. He can feel more than hear the Doctor’s quiet moans and it’s very nearly too good to stop, but Jack pulls away reluctantly. “You’re burning the bacon.” The indignant squawk sets him and Barnable laughing again.

Jack watches curiously as the Doctor sets out the bacon and toast onto two plates and hands them to Jack. “Go on,” he says, flapping his hands, “off with you.” He turns back to the bacon pan and lays another four slices of bread in it and Jack laughs.

“You taught him to make fried bread. That makes _much_ more sense than suddenly deciding he likes bacon.” The Doctor casts him a guarded glance over his shoulder, and when he comes to the table makes no attempt to distribute the fried bread away from his own plate. “Can I -”

“Mine,” the Doctor snaps, swatting Jack’s hand away. “Make your own.”

“Don’t fall for it,” Barnable says, laughing. “If you make it, it’s still his. Somehow.”

“You like regular toast just fine,” the Doctor says, then stuffs his mouth full and takes himself out of the conversation.

Very amused and not a little perplexed, Jack can’t settle on an expression. “No luck explaining why that doesn’t make sense?” he asks Barnable, who is indeed happily spreading preserves on his toast.

“Always seems to break ice on the fact that he absolutely will not eat bacon, but has to cook it first so he can make the fried bread. Someone has to eat the bacon.” Barnable shrugs.

“Ah.” Content - far beyond content - sunk so deep into happiness he can scarce imagine any other state - Jack adulterates his own toast past recognition and indulges.

Somehow he had expected _home_ to stay still and wait for him, even though it never does; Christmas seems so unchanging, day by day. But he has missed Aleesa's second birthday as well as her third, fourth, and recently her fifth, and in the meanwhile another grandniece and two grandnephews have made their debuts. People have moved to or from Wrenshall - one from even further, one of the settlements at the base of the mountains Jack has visited - Easen has turned over the bakery to his best former apprentice, and Gemma, long retired from running the clinic, has died. Jack is a fairy tale come to life for any child up to eight, and the fairy-Captain seems to like parties and adventures much more than the real Captain does anymore.

All he wants to do, he finds, is spend every day with Barnable, and every night with the Doctor; and those are different too. The Doctor doesn't sprawl over him at night at first, simply tucking himself in close, although he is perfectly willing to resume when Jack ventures a cautious comment.

"Barnable doesn't like it," he offers as explanation, barely looking up from whatever gadget has caught his attention at the moment.

Jack stares.

Then he swivels to stare at Barnable, weaving at his loom not so far away - which is new as well. Catching his eye briefly, Barnable goes slightly pink. "He missed you terribly."

"You never let _me_ snuggle you at night."

Laughing, Barnable shrugs apologetically. "I don't overheat, if it's him. You're a furnace, love. And it did take him a while not to be so…" He makes a wriggling, grasping sort of gesture with all four limbs, meant, Jack thinks, to suggest that the Doctor sleeps rather like a very friendly octopus. Which is entirely true, even if there are no octopuses on the planet to compare him to. Bemused, Jack watches them peacefully coexist a while longer, then goes to cut firewood. He has the consolation of still being undeniably _useful_ , at least.

-+-+-

The process of building them back into a stable triad has its fits and starts. Between the Doctor and Jack there is a softness, a feeling of wounds yet unhealed, mutually ignored and trod around with a muffled delicacy. Every once in a while one of them catches a foot on one of the fractures and stumbles, and the pain is startling; but they go on, as they always have. All Jack’s distress seems drained and refined down to a deep sadness that strikes him unpredictably, and they don’t have arguments so much as conversations that cut off as suddenly as dropping off a cliff. Much more odd is the trouble between Jack and Barnable. They never have been given much to arguments that the Doctor has noticed, but something seems unsettled after Jack’s long absence. After his one attempt to defray _whatever_ it is, which earned him two very sharp glares and a _stay out of it_ , the Doctor sits uncomfortably by and tries to stay out of it; right up until he can’t anymore.

Hands planted in the middle of his worktable, Jack leans over him and says, sounding completely scandalised, “He’s sweeping!”

Unable to make sense of this as a conversation starter, the Doctor frowns and nudges one of Jack’s hands somewhere a little safer. Barnable is, indeed, sweeping. Angrily. “And?”

“Why are you letting him sweep? You have two perfectly good arms, why aren’t _you_ sweeping?”

“Well, come to that -” He is about to point out that Jack has two good arms _and_ two good legs when he realises it is a more historical question. The Doctor snorts in amusement. Still the same answer, though. “It’s not really a question of _letting_ , is it, Captain? What happened last time you told him he couldn’t do something?”

Jack frowns at him. “That’s not the point.”

“Yes, it is. What happened?”

Barnable has stopped sweeping and is watching them, left arm curled around the broom - which he wields perfectly competently one-armed. Jack turns so he can frown at both of them. “He did it anyway.”

“And?”

The frown is turning distinctly petulant. “Rearranged the kitchen.”

“And?”

Throwing himself into a chair to sulk, Jack mutters, “Electrified the knobs.” Barnable laughs softly and Jack, never one for sulking after the initial drama has worn off, bounces to his feet to catch him in his arms. “If you can’t be _let_ I shall have to beg,” Jack declares, as Barnable makes a token attempt to push him away. “Please, Barney, let me back in. Let me be useful. There’s nothing to protect you from here, but let me save you from a little bit of drudgery.”

Bracing his forearms on Jack’s chest, Barnable looks at him more concerned than annoyed. “I’m not some harvest coat, too fine for everyday. You can’t hide me away in a cupboard for fear of wear, Captain.”

“I know. I know, but… let me love you, please?”

Barnable sighs, and lays his head against Jack’s chest, smiling. “Could I ever stop you?”

“Not for a moment,” Jack whispers into his hair. The Doctor looks away, silent, so as not to recall them to the world where time, inevitably, passes.

-+-+-

The silence between them seems to lay thick and soft as fog now, obscuring a place Jack may venture into without fear but which nonetheless hides its secrets from those above. He leaves it be. He doesn’t need to know, yet; and after all the wearing down, he feels too raw to dare poke at anything else. _Here_ feels safe enough. He does wonder, sometimes, what _everything else_ encompasses; especially when the Doctor doesn’t seem to be telling him anything at all.

Outside the tower, a great many people want to tell him a great many things, at any time of day, regardless of what else he would rather be doing. He’s always been worthless at shutting down conversations, except in extraordinarily rude ways - always gets the information eventually, of course, but he gets the whole life story with it, and gods, the things he’s had to smile or laugh or pretend outrage about - and he’s not yet willing to be _the Captain who left his charm in the mountains._

He likes people, he does. He likes _these_ people.

But just when they finally got used to him, he went traveling. And now he’s exotic again. Not to mention all the births and deaths and sicknesses and small triumphs and skinned knees and lost teeth and new songs and simple, petty, mindless, daily minutiae. Barnable, he discovers, is shockingly good at making up entirely false excuses to extract him without actually lying at all.

“You’re _devious_ ,” he says admiringly, following his partner away from yet another tar pit of conversation.

Barnable glances askance at him, short beard failing to hide the amused set of his mouth. “You’re surprised?”

“That’s hot,” Jack informs him, lengthening his stride to catch up. Settling his left arm about Barnable’s waist, he snugs him close but not tight, asking for nothing but what he wills.

“Captain, you are poorly calibrated. You’ve told me I’m hot when I’m brushing my teeth. You think the Doctor is hot when he’s _angry_.”

“He _is_ ,” Jack protests. “He’s magnificent. And you are, too. I like all the things you do.”

Leaning into him, Barnable laughs outright at that. “You do not. You didn’t like when I was sweeping at all.”

“I didn’t mean every individual action. I meant… all the things that make you Barney. I may be poorly calibrated, but I know what I like.”

“And that includes devious men?” He has lead Jack back to the tower, for all he shamelessly implied to four enthusiastic, gullible people that he had a list of errands for which he needed Jack’s perpetually strong back.

“Absolutely. Aww,” Jack complains, when Barnable slips away from him just inside the door. “I don’t mean to chase you away -” And then the Doctor is there, pushing him gently to the wall, kissing him with a tenderness Jack can’t help melting into. Warm fingers on his face, the relaxing heat of the tea mug or hot water bottle the Doctor must have been holding in readiness soaking into the cold skin of his cheeks; Jack moans at the feeling and the thought of him waiting there for Jack’s return.

“Go on,” Barnable says, settling himself into a comfortable chair. “I’ll watch.”

“Oh. _Oh_ ,” Jack sighs, as he finally catches on. The Doctor smiles, somehow both shy and smug, and nudges his jaw up to kiss his throat. “Devious. _Fuck_.” He spreads his feet and pulls his conspiring Time Lord close, hands kneading his arse, hips rocking against him to satisfy the sudden, intense arousal. “That’s hot.”

-+-+-

“What are you making?” The rhythmic percussion of the loom is soothing; Jack often finds himself here, laid stretched out on the sofa or reading in a chair, since he returned. As much as the Doctor clings to him at night, so he clings to Barnable during the day, unwilling to lose another precious second of time together. He had had to go; he won’t again.

“Just towels,” his beloved replies dismissively, not pausing; but Barnable’s _just towels_ are the sort of thing people get at their weddings, here. This set must be five or six - maybe more, they blend so - different shades of grey from mist to shadows, with sparks of greens shot through like the first touch of sunrise over snowy fields. “These are for Lodi and Larel and Ann.”

Shifting around until his head drapes off the edge of the sofa, Jack watches the rise and fall of the mechanism inside, raising and lowering the threads. Over the years the Doctor has modified the loom so Barnable can continue using it, adjusting the placement of levers, making it so he can pull the shuttle back and forth with small motions of a single hand. Jack had had some ambition to learn weaving, years ago, hadn’t he? But he had found something else, so as to leave Barnable his space. He had been working on the bedspread at the time. Now Jack is always about and the noise of the loom measures out his days, the _clack_ of wood, the quiet slide of the shuttle followed by the thud of the beater every row, and if it should fall silent… if it should fall silent, how could he bear to have someone else teach him, in Barnable’s place?

“Why are you using the big loom for a little towel?”

Barnable glances at him, but answers when he sees Jack is genuinely curious. “This one is more comfortable, and I can make more complicated patterns, and it keeps a more even tension. I use linen for the towels and it has no stretch, so if I use the jack loom it comes out with a bias.”

“The _what?_ ”

Jack would barter away all his dignity any day for that laugh, the way his eyes crinkle up, the quick duck of his chin. “It’s called a jack loom. No relation, I’m quite certain.” The jack loom, the smaller one he had brought here first, sits in the corner of his room upstairs, mostly neglected these days. Perhaps he would be willing, after he finishes the towels. “It’s the way the treadles move the shafts; this one is countermarche.”

Time will pass, always; but here and now is what matters. “Will you teach me?”

-+-+-+-

 


	33. A place to call his own

Somewhat to Jack’s surprise, although he has leant into _being home_ with all the want and will he commands, some days he does miss the mountains. The fresh air, the sky, the wind, the rain. Luckily the tower has a very good roof.

“What are you doing, Captain?”

Jack doesn’t turn, although he has to speak loudly for Barnable’s human hearing. “Why does everyone always ask me that? What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Standing in the rain,” says Barnable, after a pause.

“Well spotted.” Barnable makes an exasperated noise and Jack grins. “I like rain. Honestly, the things you call seasons around here. Cold and snow, cold and storms, cold and dry, cold and - and _cold_.”

“I’m not having a conversation with you on the roof in the rain. Come downstairs and be civilised.”

“Look, it’s not like I’m _naked_ up here,” Jack points out, finally turning to look at his unnecessarily snippy partner with a playful leer. “Although I could be, if you wanted. I’m perfectly civilised. I’m just wet.”

Barnable does not look particularly interested in him becoming naked, which is not surprising, but never let it be said that Captain Jack Harkness can keep his trousers on. “You’ll drip on the rugs.”

“I will not. I’ll take care of it. Go away, it was nice and quiet up here.”

It is really quite easy to avoid dripping on the rugs, but Barnable doesn’t seem to appreciate his thoughtfulness; he sighs, and covers his eyes with his hand, and laughs helplessly. Jack grins and tries the Doctor, but even he pushes Jack away when he feels how cold his skin is. Maybe the approach needs tweaking.

-+-+-

There is something about Jack, since he returned from the mountains. Something deeply knowing, deeply settled, deeply sad. And oddly enough, deeply _content_. The insecurity that ate him away under the brave face like a stream collapsing its banks is gone, replaced by a silence that rivals the Doctor’s. He doesn’t push for answers anymore.

But he feels so much like Jack-on-Bellacosa that the Doctor sometimes forgets.

"I wasn't designed to live in the dark like a mushroom," Jack declares, casting himself down dramatically before the fire, snowflakes still melting in his eyelashes. "Skin pale as a worm, not that you can tell, no proper lighting here."

"You're always pale," the Doctor disagrees absently. "And you can see perfectly well. It is a mad place to end up, though, I'll grant you that." He pushes his awl through the leather strips he picked out earlier for new braces with a small _thunk._ Pull the thread through, yank, tighten, _thunk_ again, slow counterpoint to the constant slide, _thud_ of the loom. "Lots of nicer places out there."

"Make a list, we'll go see them," Jack says, lazily indulgent. The Doctor pauses, recalled to the present; after a moment he nods. _Thunk;_ yank, tighten, _thunk_. Jack turns his head to watch him, but says nothing.

A silence falls, heavy as wet snow, each of them alone in their thoughts; until Barnable says, "That's why you can't get the tie up right, isn't it. You can't see to do it."

"I can see fine."

"Upstairs, with just a lamp for light?" Barnable shakes his head, hands and feet never pausing at his work. "Why didn't you say?"

"There's nothing to say," Jack insists, looking away. "Just rubbish at it." Barnable doesn't argue further, but the Doctor suspects there will be another attempt made soon, with additional lamps. The man's patience with their various idiocies is astonishing. Perhaps Jack envisions a similar fate for himself tomorrow, because he says next, "I was thinking of going out into the forest again."

If a loom could screech to a halt, this one would have done; it is more of a _clunk_ , and a sudden silence. Jack looks up and freezes, eyes wide in surprise. “You are not leaving again," Barnable says. The Doctor can't see his face but his voice is bad enough, so hard it's gone past brittle right to cracked through the centre.

Scrambling to his feet, Jack takes two long strides and falls to his knees at Barnable's side. "No, love, I'm not leaving again. I won't leave you again. I just meant… for the day." Jack has always craved a place to call his own, but he loves it better when he can leave long enough to miss it. "I don't have to. Barney -" Barnable looks down at him and Jack chokes. " _Bright eyes_."

"Whatever this thing is, that makes you two go silent like that, _fix it_ ," Barnable demands. "Because so help me if you leave again I’ll - I’ll,” he pauses, then turns and scowls fiercely at them both. “I’ll _go with you_.”

Half out of his chair before he realises it, the Doctor pauses to process his confused reaction to that extraordinary threat. “That is,” he says, as he finishes standing and folds his arms forbiddingly, “the single most stupid thing I have ever heard you say, Barnable -”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jack is trying to insist. “And you’re certainly not.”

“- and you told me when you were six that the planet had gone stale, and you’d like to live on one freshly baked, that was still chewy inside.”

Going slightly pink, Barnable waves his hand irritably. “You can’t use my childhood against me, that’s like arguing with _parents_.”

“You wouldn’t last a day, you’d be miserable in hours. You know you can’t just bring a pile of blankets and a kettle, don’t you? Jack can’t protect you from _snow_.” Jack has stopped trying to get a word in edgewise, instead just leaning slightly to the side, out of the line of fire.

“Why can’t you just _say_ you’d miss me?”

“And,” the Doctor says, ignoring that entirely unrelated salvo, “you’d get muddy.” He is fairly certain that ought to end the discussion.

Somewhere between bitterly resentful and triumphant, Barnable stares him down. “Then,” he says, ominously reasonable, “make it so I don’t have to.”

Jack lets the words hang in the air for a few breaths, in case either of them feels like continuing, then shakes his head despairingly. "If you've got that out of your systems, I'll point out once again that I'm _not leaving_. So forget about it."

"You had better not," Barnable says quietly.

Jack smiles up at him. "Or else; got it, thanks."

“Unfortunately, it’s not fixable,” the Doctor says quietly as he comes to stand beside Jack, card his fingers through his lover’s hair. Sinking back to his heels, Jack leans against him and sighs. “One of the perils of time travel, getting all back-to-front of each other. It was so bad with -” he swallows the grief that spikes through him every time, _every time_ , “with River, that she thought for a while we were living literally opposite each other. The first time I kissed her… she was terrified it was her last. There was so much we could never talk about. Jack and I - we’re not linear either, but it’s much closer. Especially after he left Earth. Still, there are always… things one can’t say.”

“Secrets,” Barnable says.

“Of a sort,” he agrees, and Jack nods against his leg.

“Not the sort one _wants_ to keep,” Jack says, and the Doctor nods in turn, but it’s just another lie; these last secrets, he will keep until they are pried from the depths of his hearts. And who is there to do the prying, if Jack has given it up?

-+-+-

For all Barnable’s initial panic, once Jack reassures him sufficiently that he intends to be gone a matter of days at most, he all but pushes Jack out the door. “Go away then,” he orders, with a smile to take away any sting. “Go drain the wanderlust. Make friends with the trees.”

“You,” Jack says, holding him close for a moment, “have been spending too much time with the Doctor again.”

“And now you won’t be around to supervise us.”

Exaggerating a dejected sigh, Jack lets him go. “I suppose coming home to an orgy is too much to hope for." Barnable does push him then, straight out into the cold. Laughing too hard to catch his balance, Jack tumbles down the steps and sprawls into a snowbank, rucksack pulling him down like an overturned turtle.

“And stay out!” Barnable calls after him, laughing as well.

Jack waves at a couple of bemused passersby as he gathers a wit or two, then grabs up some snow, packs it haphazardly, and launches it at his partner's grinning face. The sound of his laughter seems to hang in the air, warming and bright, long after the door slams shut; Jack chuckles, and hauls himself to his feet, and goes out to make friends with trees. Some day the Doctor is going to tell Barnable that story, and _then_ he'll be in for it.

-+-+-

Forestry seems a natural fit for Jack; what better custodian than the long-lived Captain, who can see the ebb and flow of seasons and years? He takes to it like - like everything else he takes to, with enthusiasm and competence, and then the Doctor has to hear all about _trees_ of all things. Perfectly ordinary, entirely sedentary, utterly nonsentient trees; the lives of which he himself, as the original long-lived entity in residence, has been resisting getting coopted into for centuries. Forestry is life, in Christmas.

Jack is not gone every day, of course; far from it. As the years begin to settle heavier on Barnable, he comes to rely more on Jack for a small multitude of tasks, all the things he has to reach, or lift, or carry, all the exercises in dexterity that he increasingly cannot force his right arm and hand to assist him in at all. One evening the Doctor happens to look out from the kitchen as Jack works on a new tie up on the big loom and catches Barnable watching him with an odd mixture of wonder and satisfied pride and painful regret. All that patient determination to teach Jack a thing he had become, for a time, unbearably frustrated with; all the carefully casual comments, the way he insisted Jack needn’t do anything useful at all if he didn’t like, all in the knowledge that he would soon be unable to continue the work he has spent a lifetime on without the assistance he has spent a lifetime rejecting.

Jack never complains, simply does the best he can to chart a course between appearing conveniently before Barnable has to admit he needs help and hovering obnoxiously. For the most part, the Doctor thinks uncharitably, the attempt resembles nothing so much as a bad impression of a hat stand.

Engrossed in his continuing attempt to produce magnificently ridiculous toys for the children, the Doctor is ignoring both the storm outside and Jack’s singing in the kitchen when Barnable pulls a chair over and settles across the table. He has spent the better part of the day asleep upstairs. “Better?” the Doctor inquires.

“Well enough. Thanks.” He watches the Doctor work silently for a time. “I’ve written stories for the children,” he says then, apropos of nothing.

“Mm,” the Doctor acknowledges noncommittally, without looking up from the delicate mechanism he is tinkering with. He is aware of the book of stories about him, of course; hard not to be when he tries to tell his own stories to each new crop of children and invariably some small voice will inform him they _know how it ends_.

Well, so does he.

No wonder they all think he’s a grumpy old curmudgeon; early experience. He wins them all back over, eventually. Mainly with the toys.

“But the person they’re about - it isn’t you, is it? It’s a Doctor-shaped fairy tale. There’s no… no staring at the sky watching you point unerringly to stars not even you can see. No spiteful remarks because when you’re hurt you hurt back harder. There’s love, but no heartache. There’s loss, but no grief.”

Just when he thinks everything is settled again, the man comes up with something like this. “We are all what we make of ourselves, Barnable. I’ve tried the other things. Being a fairy tale isn’t bad.”

“Well, I’m a stubborn little rock in your boot, then,” Barnable says, not giving an inch.

“More like a boot in the backside!” Jack calls from the kitchen.

“Which you know very well you need!” Barnable calls back; he smiles as a rather satisfied _yep_ drifts from the kitchen. “The thing is,” he continues, “most people know everything there is to know about the Doctor by the time they're nine, and never have another question in their lives."

"Pudding heads, the lot of them," the Doctor scoffs.

"Despite your best efforts; I know. But no one questions the air, the dark, the ground beneath their feet - they simply walk. I want to write something real. _Make_ them question. The Captain told me once, a long time ago - a long time for me - that you were _lonely_. That you think of yourself as a perpetual outsider. We were watching you dance with the children at Midsummer, and I… I couldn’t understand, then. Felt like turning my head inside out. And then he took advantage and asked me to dance whilst I was still confused." He turns to smile at Jack, who had poked his head around the corner at the mention of _the Captain_.

"It's called seizing the moment," Jack corrects.

“Go away,” says Barnable, fondly.

“Look, I’m _in_ that story!”

“I don’t want the whole thing. Just a better perspective on Trenzalore.”

“I’m in that, too,” Jack points out, failing to look offended.

Waving him away, Barnable says, “I got here before you did. You may tell me your perspective any time, Captain, right now I’m asking the Doctor. You’re just helping him get out of answering.” Laughing, Jack winks at the Doctor, shrugs, and goes back to cooking.

The Doctor sets down his tools carefully; it seems he won’t be able to avoid this by ignoring it. “Does your loom need more modification?” he suggests hopefully. “I had an idea that might make the tie up go more smoothly -”

Rolling his eyes, Barnable shakes his head. “You two. I’m not _bored_. I just wish I weren’t the only one. I’m lonely too, Doctor. Sometimes.”

All his life, torn between the tower and the town; the child they didn’t give back. He has never let it dim his joy in life, but perhaps it made a hard path more difficult. “More stories won’t fix that,” the Doctor says gently. “We’re all stories, Barnable, me more than most. I left it all behind to stay here. Sent it all away. I made it into a fairy tale; I’d rather you let it stay that way.”

Unsatisfied, Barnable says, “I want it to be _more_.” But he shrugs, and looks away.

“For you,” the Doctor says, reaching to take his hand, “it’s more. I’m more. Write it, if you like.”

-+-+-+-

 


	34. Suspended in flight

These early morning hours when mortal beings sleep have long since come to be a comfort to Jack; a reliable respite during unhappy times, during lives like these where he can’t bear to miss a moment they allow him a chance to recharge, regroup. He still sleeps, of course, a little bit - dozes off with the Doctor every night, sleeps for perhaps a couple hours - but only rarely does it take any effort to be the first one awake. It gives him a certain advantage.

Cautiously, Jack raises his head to look over the edge of Barnable's bed and find out whether he has been quiet enough _this_ year. One gleaming eye looks back at him. _Damn._ "Happy birthday," Jack whispers, resting his chin on the mattress. There isn't much, Jack has discovered over the years, that he wouldn't do for a smile from Barnable; and he has made an extensive study of it. Even if he can't actually see the smile.

"It's not my birthday," Barnable whispers back, eye narrowing as he smiles at a joke of apparently endless amusement. Jack had believed him the first time; worse, he had been right twice, which Jack will never live down. But he is absolutely certain this year. 

"Yes, it is." He still hasn't figured out how the infernal man can lie about such a straightforward thing. "I didn't make any noise _at all_ , don't you sleep?"

"I _was_ rather expecting you. I don't want presents, Captain."

Jack holds his hands up, empty. The sneaking in had, originally, been an attempt to leave presents unseen; but not this year. "I didn't get you presents."

"I don't want you to do all my chores."

"I'm not going to."

"I don't want you to spend all day making fancy food."

"I won't."

Barnable sits up, lights the candle at his bedside, and considers Jack quizzically. "I don't want a party."

Jack chuckles. "You know I'm not in charge of that. None of us ever could persuade your mum not to have parties, and now the kids think it's mandatory."

At a bit of a loss, Barnable shakes his head and shrugs and gives Jack an uncertain half smile. "Then what? I don't like surprises, love."

"I know! I finally figured it out." Feeling very clever, Jack grins up at his beloved. "I'm going to be completely unsurprising today, and do nothing out of the ordinary."

Slowly Barnable's lips curve up and the corners of his eyes crinkle; his shoulders shake briefly as if holding in laughter. "After this bit, you mean," he says.

"What? This bit?"

"The bit where you completely confuse me and then do something unexpected." He is definitely laughing now.

"Oh. Yes, after this bit." Jack will do just about anything for that laugh, too, come to think of it. And the man attached to it. He gets up from the cold floor and sits next to Barnable. "I'll do the exact same thing again next year, how's that?"

Warm and relaxed and bed-mussed, Barnable leans against him comfortably. "Well, it only took sixty years."

"You can't charge me for the first ten, I wasn't even here."

"I'm not sure that's much better. But thank you. I know it’s hard for you.”

“I did start the tea,” Jack admits.

“That’s fair. You were up first.” With a sigh, Barnable drags himself away from Jack and sets his feet down into his house shoes. “There’s a party, though, isn’t there.”

“You didn’t hear it from me.” _The Doctor’s Captain_ he may be, but Vessa has never hesitated to put the fear of God into him should he ruin her plans - or hurt her little brother. After that first sight of him stark naked and smashed flat into a field, she seems to feel everything subsequent has been anticlimactic.

“I swear she just gets worse with age. No one to rein her in, now Mum’s gone.” Jack just shakes his head, smiling. He knows better than to argue about parties. Or siblings. Or _with_ siblings, for that matter.

-+-+-

“Tell me a story.”

The Doctor frowns at his sonic screwdriver, which continues to fail to work on wood, no matter what he does. “I’ve told you too many stories. Tell your own.”

“The Doctor and the Immortal Flame,” Barnable suggests; the Doctor twists around to stare at him. Voice perfectly conversational, brows raised in inquiry, he continues, “The Doctor and His Flight From Death? The Man Who Broke Time, perhaps.”

Preposterous. Foolhardy as well, and dangerous. “The Murderer in the Tower,” the Doctor offers viciously, pushing himself to his feet, the better to loom threateningly and cut this idea off at the knees. “The Man Who Couldn’t Stay Dead, But I Really Tried. The Doctor and the Death of a Galaxy.” The glare that has sent lesser beings running fails to make an impact on Barnable, and Jack isn’t here to save him; he has gone out to the forest again. What secrets he learns there the Doctor doesn’t know. It has never, in three hundred years, provided him anything of interest but building materials he can’t sonic and the justification for a sawmill, but Jack seems to like it. Only now he isn’t here to explain to Barnable just what a terrible idea this is. “I'm _trying_ , Barnable. Is three hundred years not good enough?”

Looking away, Barnable leans back against the wall, runs his hand over his hair. “Not my place to judge. But I don’t want to tell that story,” he says, to the Doctor’s great if confused relief. “I’ll take it to my grave, Doctor, just another… just another piece of me that belongs here, and not out there.” He waves his arm toward the town and laughs bitterly. “I expect I’m more tower than town, by now. No, I want you to tell me what you can’t tell the Captain.”

Staring at Barnable, the Doctor slowly sinks back into his chair. He had hoped circumstances were changed enough now to avoid this; had hoped having Jack back would be enough deterrent. “You said you didn’t need to know.” _If you don’t need to know, neither do I_ , Barnable had assured Jack when, perhaps inevitably, they had come across a story which had to be cut short.

“I don’t,” Barnable agrees, expression troubled. “I’m asking anyway. Maybe you shouldn’t answer.”

“I don’t want to.”

“But you’re willing to.”

Silently, the Doctor moves to the chair near the fire, nods to the sofa for Barnable; he sits. Might as well be comfortable. “On the condition,” the Doctor says, holding eye contact, “that you understand you can decide to forget it, after I tell you. With your consent, I can make you forget the conversation. That’s what you chose to do last time.”

Eyes going wide, Barnable startles away. “What _last time?_ ”

“Last time you asked,” the Doctor repeats. “You chose to forget the answer. Do you still want to know?” Barnable looks distinctly unsettled, but he nods.

When he has done with telling, the Doctor sits back, silent, seeing his grave again in his mind’s eye; his grave, and his Captain, waiting for him in the sunlight by the little house in a mountain field. Even if Barnable chooses to forget again, these brief moments of sharing the burden are worth the pain of pulling it all to the surface again.

Barnable doesn’t ask anything. He stares at his hands, at the fire, sometimes at the Doctor. "I see now," he says distantly. "Why the fairy tales." Then there is a choked little noise and he drops his head to his hands. “I’m rubbish at secrets. I can’t… I don’t think I can keep this one for you. I’m sorry, Doctor. Make me forget.”

It's not true; he keeps a vast array of them. But not from Jack. "It’s alright. Come up to bed," the Doctor says, letting Barnable believe lying down is better. And then, regretfully, takes the day and pulls forward the memory of a migraine; because he discovered last time that even his persuasive powers are not up to convincing Barnable he had _chosen_ to get nothing done for hours.

Somewhat terrifyingly, when Barnable wakes shortly thereafter, he comes downstairs, sits against the Doctor by the fire, and says, “Tell me a story.”

“Hm?” the Doctor says, pretending to be engrossed in his book.

“About the Captain,” Barnable says sleepily. “Tell me a story about my husband.”

Confused, the Doctor eyes his human companion with mild concern. "When did you get married?"

Barnable shrugs a shoulder as if it doesn't matter, and says, "Ask the Mother Superious," as if it makes sense. Neither, the Doctor suspects, is true. "It sounds better," he adds, when the Doctor waits for a more sensible answer. "In the story."

"What about me?" the Doctor asks, feeling vaguely left out.

Barnable laughs. “Take it up with him yourself,” he says, which manages both to miss the point of the question entirely, and immediately convince the Doctor that taking the subject up with anyone further would be a Bad Idea.

So instead he says, “Nevermind,” and pulls Barnable close, and kisses his forehead in silent apology for things that must remain unsaid. “Has he told you why I think making friends with trees is funny? No, I suppose it’s funnier from my point of view.” When Jack returns home, he bears the indignity with good grace.

-+-+-

Even better than birthday mornings are the mornings after he has been gone for a few days. He doesn’t usually bother sleeping whilst he is out; setting a camp for an hour or two of poor sleep is a waste of time, and a full night of real sleep warm and cozy at home is a pleasure worth the effort. Except he seems to have done something wrong, this time. He is cold and wet instead of warm and cozy, but that's exactly what he had been trying _not_ to be -

"Wake up, Captain," Barnable says sharply, fingers clenched in Jack's hair to shake his head. "You've fallen asleep in the bath and I won't have the Doctor walking in on that. Wake _up_."

“Whuh,” Jack says intelligently, sluggish and chilled to the bone but nonetheless moving as commanded. All but dragged from the bath, he soon finds himself dry, clothed, wrapped in a dressing gown, and seated at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and a blanket thrown over his shoulders, still confused but much warmer. Barnable stands very still at the counter. “Barney. Love. Thank you. What’s wrong with the Doctor walking in on me in the bath?”

“Oh, no, that’s not -” He startles back into motion, waves a hand dismissively. “No, it’s the _asleep_ part. Lying there, you looked… He doesn’t need the reminder.”

No wiser, Jack shakes his head. “Looked what? Dead? I don’t make a habit of dying in bathtubs, Barney, and anyway, he can _tell_.”

Whirling to pin him with an angry glare, Barnable hisses, “I _know_ he can tell! And if you don’t know why it’s a problem then your memory has a few more holes than you realise.” 

Any recent ones at all is more than he realised. But his memory is less a thing with holes than it is a thing made of holes - the holes are the thing - a vast expanse of lacework, the space in between a hundred, a thousand pieces of lives lived and gone, time he’ll never see again. Still, he lives through every moment of it. He’s living it right now, building out the shape of a new hole. Is it already beginning to collapse?

Barnable's hand is in his hair again, pressing Jack's head gently against his chest. "What did I say, oh, what did I say? Please don't go all empty like that, Captain, I'm sorry."

"'m alright," Jack mumbles into warm wool, the smoke and sweat and spruce-sweet soap smell of this beloved mortal, not yet forgotten. He would burrow right in if he could, as close as close can be, offer all the devotion and love there is never room for between himself and the Doctor. "Good now."

Barnable doesn't back away. "What did you need a bath so desperately for, anyway?"

"Found some more bog iron." The hand carding his hair pauses. "I fell in a bog," Jack mutters. So many reasons to regret falling in the hot spring fed bog he'd stumbled across, but the long walk home in quickly frozen clothes is right at the top of the list. "Someone should thank me."

"I'm sure someone will, but it won't be me," Barnable replies. "Gave me a terrible fright." His fingers clench, probably entirely unintentionally, but it feels much too good to resist; Jack leans heavier on him, gone boneless in willing surrender to whatever he can do to make up for the inadvertent heartache. After a momentary hesitation, Barnable lets out a soft huff of laughter and shakes Jack's head again, very gently. "Key to your heart, isn’t it."

"Don't tease," Jack murmurs, meaning something almost completely opposite.

“Come sit with me,” Barnable says; so he does, and falls back to sleep within three minutes, warm and cozy at home, head pillowed in Barnable’s lap. Perhaps there's no way to tell which are the best mornings, then, because the quality of the rest of the day doesn't seem to have much to do with where he slept or how he woke up.

-+-+-

The evenings in are his favourite, which is bizarre; the Doctor has never once, in all his incarnations, been the sort of person about whom the words _homebody_ or _domestic_ might be used. He has enjoyed more sedentary pursuits, of course; he reads voraciously and always has, consumes every sort of artistic endeavour with gusto, happily tinkers for hours. Still, it does tend to be a pursuit, whether of answers or solutions or simply experiences. He is not pursuing anything, these evenings spent before the fire. He has already acquired it all: company, and comfort, and contentment.

He doesn’t do _growing old_ with humans; he grows old with Jack in a different way, of course, and Jack stays with his humans but doesn’t grow old with them. Only apparently he does, now, and there is so much new. He had never suspected how much fun being old and grumpy _with_ someone would be.

“I blame this on you,” Jack says one evening, trying to warm up before the fire and mildly disgruntled by the Doctor stealing away his warmth for himself. Jack is better than any fire, especially after spending a very enjoyable two hours with Barnable alternately heckling aspiring ice skaters and complaining about chilblains and joints gone stiff in the cold. The Doctor burrows his hands under Jack’s soft jumper and he jerks away. “Ack! Watch where you put those, icicle man. The boy I fell in love with hadn’t a grumpy bone in his body.”

“Bring him round to meet us, then, we’ll soon sort that,” Barnable says, still in the mood to heckle, and the Doctor snickers and lays heavier against his lover.

“See?” Jack demands with a hugely overwrought sigh. “Ruined him, you have.”

"I've done nothing of the sort. He's perfect."

" _He_ is right here," Barnable grumbles, elbowing Jack from his other side.

"You're _enjoying_ this," Jack accuses in a tone of amused enlightenment. "You're making sport of me. And everyone else." He shifts a bit, and when Barnable speaks again his voice is much closer to the Doctor, having been gathered in as well.

"I don't spend my time doing things I don't enjoy, Captain," he says. The Doctor tips his face up to kiss Jack, and Barnable spends the evening right where he is, and if Jack is more prone to fond smiles than trying to fix whatever they spend time complaining about after that, all to the better.

-+-+-

One day Jack wakes into the calm of early morning, the Doctor’s nose pressed to his shoulder as he dreams, eyes twitching, breathing deep and easy. As much as Jack would love a nose pressed to his other shoulder, Barnable prefers his heavy pile of blankets upstairs where no one can interrupt his sleep or disturb his remarkably fussy thermal homeostasis.

Jack wakes, and all is dark, all is quiet; but something feels wrong.

He rolls out of bed, careful not to wake the Doctor, steps into his house shoes, pads out into the rest of the house. No one in the workroom; no one in the kitchen. All is still inside. He climbs the stairs to the roof, in case it was topside calling, but no one is there.

He peeks into Barnable's room on the way back down; all is still, still.

All is still, and silent, and _wrong_.

“Barney?” Jack creeps in, dread pacing his quiet steps. All is as it should be, clothing tidy on the chair beside the basin, half-finished piece on the loom, paintings from his sister on the walls, a few of Jack’s own carvings. But no soft snores, no deep breaths. “Bright eyes?”

No breaths at all.

-+-+-

Woken to pounding hearts and terror by the fiery flare of Jack reviving, the Doctor nearly falls as he tries to fling himself out of bed. He curses his clumsy fingers, Fate and Time, and whatever has gone wrong _now_ as he straps his leg on, pulls his housecoat roughly over his shoulders, and grabs his cane. He finds Jack in Barnable's room, bent over his body, gasping in a pain that will never be alleviated by death. Not for Jack.

“I tried,” Jack says, nothing but hopeless anguish in his voice. “I tried to bring him back. I tried, Doctor -”

He can't say _you shouldn't have_ , not now. He finds he can't say anything, throat nearly too tight to swallow. Instead he goes to Jack, sits on the edge of the bed and pulls him close; Jack leans against him but his eyes are still locked on Barnable's face.

“You -” Jack starts, after minutes of silence.

“Don't ask me that,” the Doctor finds the strength to say, and Jack stops.

“No. I'm sorry. I… no.” He takes a breath, and another. “I thought… we had years left. I thought…”

Will he go now, the Doctor wonders, hearts faltering as he stares into that abyss. Will he flee from this place, this world, now that the life he made, the anchor he tied himself to, is lost? Will he run from the Doctor, who can't quite share his grief? Somehow Jack retains the ability to give his heart fully, still, having lost so many loves already; the Doctor cannot, anymore. Just another sign that he is approaching the end of his meddling.

“‘When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky is no more than remembered light,’” the Doctor offers quietly, to paper over the emptiness he can’t quite look at yet. “‘And the stories of cirrus and cumulus come to a close, And all the birds are suspended in flight -’” But although he meant it as an elegy for Barnable, he can't go on because suddenly he is speaking of himself as well, and they had only just begun to grow old and there was so much left to learn and he is not ready. He is not yet ready to think about what might be waiting for him, or what he might sing, when his ship slips into darkness there at the end.

For a moment Jack looks utterly lost. "We were going to dye that yarn, it's all washed and wound - I don't know what colour he wanted -" Then he inhales a sharp breath, and says, in a voice like ice shifting under unbearable weight, “I'll have to tell Vessa,” and turns his face into the Doctor's shoulder and sobs.

-+-+-

Jack wakes, and something is wrong.

He remembers.

He pulls the Doctor close, and stays in bed.

-+-+-+-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The poem is[The End](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52172/the-end-56d2306e43cbd), by Mark Strand. I highly recommend it. It informs this entire sprawling novel. And I hope I made you love him, at least a little bit._


	35. Slow disintegration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: grief, self-harm sorts of ideation._

Living is, fairly often, the very last thing Jack wants to be doing, and yet -

And yet, dying isn’t actually better. It hurts going in and it hurts coming out, and when he’s done life still hurts and nothing has changed except he has usually caused someone else significant distress. And all those someone elses are all the good he can ever hope to find, so that is no sort of goal.

Some days he stays in bed. One day he sits at the loom in Barnable’s room and pretends nothing is wrong and he’ll be home soon, but coming downstairs again is too painful to want to repeat. Some days he climbs to the roof of the tower and sits there until he freezes; sometimes literally, which makes the Doctor angry. Some days he walks out into the forest and doesn’t return for… time. He doesn’t know. Each day seems the same, each dark morning runs into evening and back again to morning without distinction, and the haze of grief eats away at even the brief minutes of daylight. He cherishes the pain, nearly as much as he cherishes the love; it feels like proof he is still human.

It nearly does tear them apart. If they could grieve together, perhaps it would help, but they can't. The Doctor throws himself into new projects, into solving problems, into building new things; Jack throws himself into silence, and it swallows him down whole.

Listening to the Doctor witter on is much more than he can stand. He _knows_ it’s just a coping mechanism, just distraction; Jack would love to be distracting himself with sex but if the Doctor won’t _shut up_ \- He would have to go to Wrenshall to have a chance of a casual fuck, and maybe not even there. Maybe topside, fuck a Dalek. Or get shot, either works for him; but the experiment would hurt the Doctor. Who doesn’t seem to care he’s hurting Jack, stood there cheerfully detailing some idiotic plan to make _something_ work better. Finally unable to bite his tongue any harder without drawing blood, Jack cuts him off. “Running off at the mouth all hours of the day, what _good_ are you?”

The Doctor frowns at him. “It’s more use than self-indulgent wallowing, don’t you think?”

“You’re trying to forget him,” Jack counters.

Stung, the Doctor straightens. “At least I’m not - at least I’m _here_ this time. I loved him too, Jack.”

A bark of bitter laughter escapes him. “Did you? Did you ever tell him, even once? Won’t answer that one, will you. Coward." The Doctor _is_ trying to answer but Jack doesn't want to hear it. "And what do you mean, _this time_. Not what? Not grieving too?” The Doctor flinches and Jack looks away, stomach twisting guiltily. “There's nothing you run faster from than grief, unless it's _me_ \- I didn’t see you for four hundred years when _you_ were grieving.” The look on the Doctor’s face is that mix of confusion and painful regret Jack has grown so infuriatingly familiar with. Spoilers again, and why couldn't he have already done _whatever this is_ and let them be together without secrets for once, for _just once_ -! Circles and circles and circles, their timelines looping back on themselves and each other. Jack knows better than to ask. His personal suffering weighs very little next to the proper maintenance of timelines, for a Time Lord.

“I did tell him,” the Doctor says quietly.

It’s not what Jack wants to hear right now. “Self-righteous bastard.” Arms wrapped tight around himself to keep the pain from spilling out any more, Jack stalks away, out the back, out to the biting air and snow that will feel like knives if he stands out in it long enough.

-+-+-

At least he's not falling into the pit of his own self-loathing. They've done this before - the Doctor has, at any rate, been there in the aftermath of another shattering loss that this Jack has not yet imagined - only this time it's _his_ loss too and Jack's accusations are monumentally unfair. Deeply, profoundly unfair, and it would be so easy to say to hell with it and fall into the biggest, most painful shouting match ever -

And then - and then everything he still has left to fear.

So he doesn't. 

But just like before, he is no use at all; is it any wonder he stays far away when Jack wants human comfort? He's always been more the clap on the shoulder sort, _cheer up old chap, brave heart_ , on to the next. He can provide Jack the harder comforts he needs sometimes, the pain that grounds him, the submission that takes him away from the endless clamoring voices of choice and responsibility and consequences. But the softer comforts are not his; neither to dispense nor accept.

So he continues to bury himself in new pursuits, following every new idea with a reckless will because the loss of Barnable is an empty space every time he looks up, a suffocating silence he can't help trying to fill all the hours of the day, a cold wall the Doctor finds himself fetching up against in his thoughts time and time again. He daren't stay still for fear of what will catch him if he does. But Jack doesn't want to hear about it, and gradually the silence overtakes them both.

Perhaps they should have had the shouting match. This slow disintegration is no better.

One day the Doctor comes home to find Jack on the floor beside the bed, face pressed to the bedspread. He has pulled it off centre and it drapes about him oddly, held flat for a distance between his hands. The Doctor can’t think what he might be doing, but then they haven’t made much sense to each other, lately. “Jack?”

“This one,” Jack touches a thread without looking up, runs his finger along it gently. “This one isn’t blue.”

“A lot of them aren’t blue.”

Jack takes a slow breath, but not the sort the Doctor has become used to lately, the ones that mean he is trying to keep his patience, or his temper, or deciding whether to come back in the evening at all. He takes a breath like it hurts to breathe. “This one is the colour of his eyes.” And then a tiny, heartsbreaking sound comes from behind lips pressed tight together, and he says, “Doctor -”

The Doctor sits by him, and tugs his head to his lap, and strokes Jack’s hair as he weeps silently. “I’m sorry, Jack, I’m so sorry, I’ve been useless, I can’t - I just don’t know how.”

“I know,” Jack says, rubbing his face slowly against the Doctor’s thigh. His voice cracks. “It’s going to be alright. Only it isn’t yet, Doctor, it isn’t alright _yet_ , and I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m here now,” he says; and if it’s the best he can do, maybe it will be enough.

-+-+-

“Barnable?” the Doctor calls. “Is that you?” It isn't Jack, certainly; he knows when Jack is about. It isn't Barnable either, of course. The child standing diffidently inside the door has the most terrible look of pity on her face and the Doctor looks away, scowling. He can't think of her name. “What is it?”

“The Captain sent me by,” she says. “Just to… check on you.”

Her directions had contained more specificity than that, the Doctor wagers. Jack has been away before the Doctor wakes the last few days, helping clear a mudslide over the road to Wrenshall. “I've washed and dressed and eaten,” he verifies grumpily, “and I'll eat again later. I haven't set the tower on fire. Is that everything?”

“He's just worried. We're worried. I know Uncle Barney meant a lot to you -”

Peering at her more closely, the Doctor frowns. Old enough to not be in his classes anymore, but not _that_ old. “He was never your uncle?”

She shrugs a shoulder equivocally. “Great uncle. Still.”

He can see a resemblance, maybe, around the eyes, but not so much of one as to be painful. Her hair is dark, her face sharper than his had ever appeared. “I didn't _forget_ ,” he says, less pugnaciously. “I just… didn't remember, for a moment. He used to yell back at me, you know, sometimes. All I'd get back was _get it yourself_ , or occasionally _sod off_ if I'd managed to severely overextend his patience.” He sighs. “He had a lot of patience. Do you weave? Would you like to see his - his masterpiece, I suppose it was?” His uninvited guest looks a bit taken aback and the Doctor quickly reconsiders. “Or go, I'm sure you have things to do; I'll tell Jack you stopped by. What was your name?”

“No,” she says, and then, “yes, I mean, I would like to see it; I don't weave. I'm Mareen.”

The bedspread is fifty years old and well loved but still very impressive; belatedly the Doctor hopes he remembered to make the bed this morning. He's going to have to do better at the remembering, or cause Jack terrible pain one of these days.

The first time he calls for Barnable when Jack is about is just as heartsbreaking as he feared. And the second, for that matter; and the third.

-+-+-

It's the little things, really; a new collection of them every time. His stupid insistence on using the _right_ towels, the arhythmic humming in the kitchen that drove Jack mad, the way he made the eggs. Jack got it wrong again, of course; the question is why he tried in the first place. Poking at his plate morosely, he says, "I miss him."

"So do I," the Doctor agrees. He seems to be having no trouble with his appetite. "Every day. But I can't see why breakfast should remind you. He was a terrible cook."

"He was never!" Jack exclaims, affronted.

"He was. Better than me, but if that’s not damning with faint praise, I don't know what is. Were you trying - you _were_." He laughs at Jack's consternation. "Don't make eggs like he did, please."

"You never said anything."

"Of course not." Jack watches as he resumes eating, struck by the realisation that of all the Doctor's many kinds of silence, this one was for no reason but love. Forty years of silence just to save a man he loved a minor pain. How much pain is he hiding in silence from Jack?

Out of pure contrariness he tries making eggs badly the next day; if they do bear a certain resemblance, he will never admit it.

-+-+-

Rubbing his temples, the Doctor watches the children at work on today’s contraption. The headache has been creeping up on him all morning, although it’s a nice enough day; nothing of any sort falling from the sky, and yet there is a nebulous anxiety to it that no one else seems to feel.

He could just as well be sitting at home in comfort.

The headache ratchets up another notch and he decides to call it a day, although he always feels slightly ashamed doing so. It used to be a bit of a joke between himself and Barnable. Most days, he just smiled at the Doctor tolerantly and made him tea and listened to his fussing; because on the other kind of days, the Doctor was the only one who quite understood the pain he was in. But now there is an empty space there, and Jack is occasionally very unsympathetic.

“If you’re alright here,” he calls, pushing himself to his feet, “I’m going home early. Bit under the weather.” Two of the children wave to him in acknowledgement, which is good enough. Self-sufficient bunch, this lot.

Jack is still home, which is odd. “I thought you were going out to the forest today,” the Doctor says as he hangs up his coat. There is no answer; Jack is leant against the wall, slouched and out of true, over on the side of the tower he usually avoids - far too close to the crack in the universe for the Doctor’s comfort. Ah. Thus the headache, and the looming anxiety. The Doctor makes his way over, interposes himself between Jack and the light from the wall. “Come away, Jack, please.”

Looking straight through him, Jack murmurs, "It would be nice, though, wouldn't it?"

"No," he says, tugging at Jack's sleeve, "it wouldn't."

Jack's eyes focus on him, face falling from distant contemplation to more earthly distress. He follows the Doctor to the kitchen, sits when directed. “Would it work? Would it… _could_ it erase me?”

The silence as the Doctor makes the tea becomes increasingly charged as it stretches; Jack’s eyes are locked on him hungrily and the Doctor can’t meet them. If the answer were _no_ , he would have said immediately, and they both know it. He sets the tea down, and sits, and reaches for Jack’s hand. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly. "It's not open right now, but it's not impossible it should be so again. Right now there’s a passive interference between you and it, between your _being_ and its _unbeing_ , but set directly against each other… I don't know what would happen. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps you would - seal the break somehow, make it whole. Perhaps it would eat the entire universe." His bets lean toward the last. _Stay away from black holes_ , he doesn't say.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know, Jack. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to open it, in any case.”

Looking down, Jack sighs and takes a sip of his tea. “Suppose I’ll always wonder.”

He stays to watch the sun with the Doctor, and then he does go; and after that he is gone more and more, for days at a time. The Doctor can't fault him. How hard it must be, living every day alongside that possibility.

-+-+-+-

 


	36. Please come back

Largely unobserved, the last gleam of sunlight scatters through the rain and sets it ablaze like crystal droplets just before the clouds meet the teeth of the mountains and consume the short dusk. Shorter lived than usual today, and all the more stunning for the dramatic sweep of the storm. It’s a damn shame the Doctor missed it, but he prefers to avoid standing out in the rain; too depressing, he says. Bad memories, Jack suspects; or just too damn cold. But for a moment, he had caught the hint of a rainbow in the storm, above the starkness of the sharp light and long shadows. The odds are depressingly good that no one else at all had seen it.

The rains are late this year; it is just days until Midsummer, and it’s going to be a wet one. _Jack_ is late this year. He has made a habit of being out in the forest by now, poking about for what damage the spring snows have wrought, marking trees for cutting, freeing good trunks from fallen branches. Now the rain’s started, he can go. He hadn’t been about to pass up the opportunity to watch the confluence of sunlight and first rain from the roof of the tower, though, even if he has to do it alone.

“Uncle Jack? Is that you up there?”

Leaning over the edge of the roof, Jack shades his eyes to keep out the rivulets of water from his hair and calls, “Who else?”

“No one, I’m sure,” Mareen says, holding an oilcloth cloak above her head. “You’ll catch your death.”

Laughing, he waves vaguely at the tower and says, “It keeps escaping. Go on in, I’ll be down in a minute.”

Jack is at the first floor landing, soaked clothes safely removed to the basket kept for the purpose, when he hears the Doctor yelp in alarm and the scrape of a chair on the floor, followed by the quick thump of his cane. “No, wait, why don’t you - maybe wait in the kitchen -” the Doctor says, and Jack is about halfway down the last spiral of stairs when he remembers that inviting Mareen in and expeditiously ridding himself of wet clothes may not go together well.

“Sorry,” he says with a charming smile that turns immediately to a stifled laugh at the sight of the Doctor attempting with very little success to block the view of the stairs from Mareen, who is sitting on the sofa grinning at both of them. He winks at her. “Barney didn’t like me to drip on the rugs.”

“I quite see,” she says with admirable gravity.

“Well _stop it_ ,” the Doctor orders, edging around to block her view again. “Clothes _then_ conversation, Captain!”

“Look, if she hasn’t been scandalised by me yet, she’s not going to be. If you’re in such a hurry, why don’t you come help?”

“ _Captain!_ ”

Jack flees, laughing. When he returns, dry and warmer and fully clothed, the Doctor has retreated in disarray and Mareen is poking at Barnable’s loom, brown hair tucked behind her ears as she bends to peer at a joint. Jack fights down a reflexive protest and tugs her away from it slightly; only in order to hug her, really. “Not taken up weaving, have you?”

“Oh, no. Professional admiration. Goodness you’re cold. What were you doing up there?”

Rolling his eyes, Jack says, “Why does everyone always ask me that? There is nothing at all confusing about standing in the rain.”

Lips pressed together, Mareen considers him with hands on hips. “I doubt anyone has ever found it _confusing_ \- it’s just remarkably _stupid_.”

A suspicious noise drifts in, rather like someone trying to drown out a laugh by rattling the teacups about. “None of your lip,” Jack calls.

Mareen laughs and pushes him toward the kitchen. “Go get something warm in you.” 

Back turned, the Doctor flicks a sly glance at Jack as he creeps close to slip arms about his waist, press close against his back, but doesn’t say anything until his neck is suddenly subjected to the very cold skin of Jack’s cheek. “Stop it,” he squawks, flailing slightly. “If I spill the tea it will be your fault.” Jack just holds him tighter and turns his head to press his other cheek against the other side of the Doctor’s neck. “Jack! It’s my hands I’ll spill it on!”

“Sorry,” Jack murmurs, and steadies his lover’s hands with his own. “Sun shining, rain falling, puts me in a good mood.”

“I know,” the Doctor concedes, turning his head for an awkward kiss. Jack lets his lips trail back toward a sensitive ear, nibbling lightly, and feels the Doctor shiver against him. “I’m glad of it, really.”

He doesn’t stay once the tea is served, but takes his back to his worktable with him. Jack sits with Mareen at the table, warming his hands on the teapot. “How’s everyone? Your parents? Have you heard from Eben recently?”

“All’s well,” she assures him. “Wrenshall suits him. They’re fine. And no doubt you’ve seen Nana more recently than I have.”

“Just Monday,” Jack agrees. He tries to stop by the farm to see Vessa weekly; it helps them both, after losing Barnable much too soon. Although she is in her eighties now and hasn’t had much to do with the actual work of the farm for years, she always seems to be chasing around one or another great-grandchild. Will do, Jack supposes, until the day she dies. She never has been one to sit still. “She sends her love.”

Mareen nods, and sips her tea; sets the cup down with a click and then picks it up to swirl the dregs. “You never come by the carpentry anymore,” she says finally. “So I… wanted to stop in. See how you’re doing.”

“Oh, I keep busy,” Jack says, pasting on a dismissive smile. “Out and about.”

“You’re not,” she points out, looking up. “Out and about.”

“The rain was late. I’ll be going tomorrow.” Jack has the growing feeling of being dragged toward a cliff.

“Won't you stay a couple more days? Come to the Midsummer party?" Shaking his head silently, Jack’s eyes slide away until they fetch up against the Doctor’s concerned gaze. He glares; the Doctor looks surprised for a moment, then shakes his head in denial, _I didn’t ask her to come_. He nods toward the kitchen to prod Jack’s attention back to Mareen, and Jack, reluctantly, looks back. “Why?” she asks softly.

“I’ve got work to do, just like anyone else,” he tries, but she shakes her head. “I don’t want to.” She reaches out hesitantly as if to take his hand, and Jack crosses his arms and scowls. “Midsummer is for dancing with Barney. Alright? He’s gone, and I…” His knee is juddering with nervous energy; he stills it firmly. “Midsummer can get bent. You don’t need me there.”

“He died when I was fourteen, Uncle Jack.” Her fingers twist together anxiously but she’s got the stubborn face on and it hurts, it _hurts_ , he’s stayed here much too long.

“Then you remember him,” Jack says, trying to derail the conversation however he can. “That’s good.” Everyone should remember him, for as long as they can, because someday… someday no one will. Something else, anything else. “You’re the only one who calls me that, you know.”

“I know.”

Jack tries on a grin. “It’s so I don’t forget and flirt with you, isn’t it.” An indignant noise comes from the other room but the Doctor manages to refrain from commentary.

“I’m sure that was the basis of my thought process at age two,” Mareen agrees gravely but her eyes are laughing and Jack joins in helplessly, drops his face to his hands when it starts to feel like something else.

“I don’t want to,” he says again after a silence; his voice cracks. “He was twenty four… How old are you now, Mareen?”

“Thirty,” she says gently, letting her life join so many other finite measures of Jack’s infinity. "Please. Come back."

Jack swallows, and nods. “Next year,” he promises. “I’ll come next year.”

-+-+-

He doesn't know if this is normal for Jack, years of mourning running into decades, or whether it's being stuck here, or whether Barnable was special. He _was;_ of course he was. But the Doctor has had worse losses - losses that hit him harder, anyway - he’s not sure how one might rank them, really, or why he’s trying. Here at the end of all things, surely it doesn't matter.

To be honest, he is not doing much better than Jack. It's not the social events he can't bear, though; it's the evenings, and he somehow has to get through one every single day. No one smiles at him as he mutters at his work, no one pats the sofa invitingly when his eyes grow tired. No one trims the wicks in the lamps, and he forgets; they gutter and smoke. No one keeps him company in the kitchen whilst he has his tea. There is no one _there_ , Barnable’s place at the table abandoned, his loom fallen silent, and the tower is full of empty echoes and the heat of the fire doesn’t warm.

It rains again Midsummer night. Jack is not back yet, and the evening is a very difficult one after the tumultuous joy of the party is cut short. Stormy days are the worst; it's so easy to forget, and think Barnable must simply be upstairs sleeping off the migraine, and if the Doctor sets his work aside and reads by the fire, perhaps he will wake up and come downstairs and lay against him, quiet and peaceful and _there_.

He doesn't.

Disgusted with himself, the Doctor flicks an ember from his book and tosses it to the other end of the sofa, hauls himself up. "Selfish," he accuses the empty air as he shoves the once-again-forgotten screen in front of the fire. "You're selfish, Jack, that's all this is, pretending you can't see -" It was so easy to admit, at the beginning, when Jack came crashing down from the sky to bring light back to his dark world, but now… life doesn't seem so simple. Now, when Jack hurts, he goes where the Doctor cannot follow. It has never been more obvious that whatever the Doctor has to offer, whatever there is between them, it is not enough. "I need you, Jack," the lonely Time Lord finishes quietly, not sure why he's bothering. He climbs the stairs slowly. "I hurt too. Selfish, making me do it all alone."

Jack stands in the rain, and it makes him feel better.

The Doctor wants very badly to feel better.

The rain is bitterly cold. These first rains are a danger; they clear the snow but the mountain winds can turn them freezing again much too quickly, leave dark, smooth ice coating every surface. The moment the Doctor emerges from the windbreak of the stairwell a stronger and much colder wind than he expected catches him, whips his coat into a frenzy and nearly sweeps him from his feet. He staggers, slips, reaches, catches himself - then his cane slips and he falls to his knees, defeated in moments not a metre from the stairs. The rain stings his face, so cold it burns until numb pain slides down over his nerves like oil; the wind drives it inside his collar and it trickles freezing down his back as he tries to twist away, wracked by uncontrollable shivers. His legs feel sheathed in ice.

On a good day, he has a great deal of resilience in the face of environmental hazards, but Trenzalore is not a place for good days and today is not even mediocre. The Doctor realises suddenly how unforgivably stupid, how very selfish it was to endanger himself so unnecessarily, alone. Somehow he staggers back to his feet, reaches the stairwell, does not fall down the stairs. In turning he catches a gust of wind straight to the face, and his _eyes_ \- his eyes feel cracked like glass, he daren’t open them, he makes his way down by feel as more nearly-freezing water drips into his collar from his hair. He sheds his sodden coat somewhere, paws off his boots, crawls on numb hands and congealing muscles toward the pale imitation of that blazing sun that lights his way, too far away to reach now.

The fire doesn’t warm him.

-+-+-

At first Jack thinks the Doctor has stayed up waiting for him again; stupidly, and hopefully unsuccessfully, as it's four in the morning when he gets home. But the lamp still burning is down to the guard, and the fire is untended, and no one answers his call, and there is, bizarrely, a boot in the middle of the floor -

Heart racing, Jack hurries further in. Not again, not now, not another loss when his back is turned, _not the Doctor_ -! Pressed tight to the hearth, and thank mercy it has a lip or Jack might have come home to something much worse, the Doctor is laying in a tight fetal curl, unresponsive. No coat, no blanket; his hair is limp and bedraggled, and when Jack reaches down to touch him he is damp and very, very cold.

"Oh, Doctor, what have you done?" When he drops to his knees, Jack finds the floor is wet as well; no insignificant amount of water the Time Lord has run afoul of. Rolling him to his back, Jack carefully pries his forehead from his knees, checks for a pulse - both hearts slow but steady - and sighs. "Frozen yourself. Can't leave you alone for a second…"

But there will be plenty of time for guilt later. Stripping the wet clothes as quickly as he can, Jack wraps the Doctor in his own coat, then thinks better of it - he has been out in the rain as well, after all, and it won’t hold his heat for long - and instead gathers all the blankets scattered around, soft and, crucially, _dry_ , and makes a nest on the sofa. He stirs the fires and carefully builds them up, runs himself a bath that’s going to hurt like blazes, and fills all the hot water bottles they have; which is three, and it suddenly seems like not nearly enough. Bringing a few of the blankets along, Jack carries the Doctor to bed, tucks him in with the hot water bottles, brushes the hair from his face and pulls his nightcap on, and kisses his forehead. “Won’t be a moment, love, don’t mind me.”

Jack eyes the bath, takes a few steadying breaths, and then, embarrassingly, continues standing still. He glares at the bath; it is unperturbed. He attempts to stare it down. He won’t be much good to the Doctor if his skin is ice cold, but if he’s going to waffle about like this he might as well do the sensible thing and warm up more gradually.

“Coward,” he accuses himself. “You’ll walk through fire for him. You’ll die for him. Now you’re afraid of a bath?” He would never throw anyone _else_ numb with cold into a warm bath, but it’s quick and he won’t take any lasting damage. And the Doctor isn’t awake to argue with him. Jack sits on the edge, stops thinking about it, and lets himself fall in. It’s every bit as bad as he expected; he grits his teeth and endures as blood vessels expand, skin thaws, nerves overload into burning pain.

Sometimes he has really _bad_ ideas.

He rolls over - even dunks his face briefly - to make sure the chill is gone from all his skin, then pulls the plug and gets out, dries off quickly, and slips into the not-at-all warm bed. Shivering, and very aware that the Doctor is _not_ , Jack insinuates himself around his lover and pulls the blankets snug around himself. “Captain Jack Harkness, sexiest hot water bottle on Trenzalore, that’s me,” he says, kissing the Doctor’s forehead again. “Be alright, please? I’m sorry I was gone.”

He falls asleep soon enough, but wakes up when shivers begin to shake the Doctor’s thin frame, making his teeth chatter as his limbs jerk against Jack’s body, his head pushing into Jack’s shoulder as his muscles try to draw him back into a curl. Folding the Doctor’s arms between them, Jack catches his left leg between his own and holds tight, willing a faster bleed of his own life's heat into his lover's chilled skin, pulling the hot water bottles closer to the Doctor’s back although they have lost much of their warmth. Better than nothing; better than leaving him to refill them.

Periodically nudging the Doctor’s head up to make sure he can breathe properly, Jack holds him patiently, sings quietly whilst he waits. He almost misses when the Doctor wakes; it’s nothing more than a tiny noise and a more pliant press of his body against Jack’s, which is shocking when Jack realises. He had expected flailing. There is almost certainly no one else in the universe who could get away with holding the Doctor confined so.

He loosens his arms, and the Doctor makes another small noise. “I’m not going anywhere,” Jack assures him. “Just don’t want you to feel trapped.” Shaking his head slightly, the Time Lord presses closer, and Jack obediently tightens his arms again. “Alright.” He seems to fall back to sleep, but after what must be another hour the bell at the door rings and before Jack can even seriously consider getting up the Doctor’s arms are wrapped around him insistently.

“Don’t go.”

“Alright,” Jack agrees, surprised but pleased to hear him speak. “But someone will come in eventually, you know. To check on you.”

"You'd think they'd know better," the Doctor mumbles. Jack chuckles.

"Standing orders, when I'm gone. I'm sure I'll regret it someday, but I certainly don't right now. What happened?" The Doctor is silent, but squirms around a bit; at first Jack thinks he's trying to get comfortable, but then realises he's hiding. "Hey. None of that."

Face successfully out of Jack’s view, the Doctor says, "Standing in the rain makes you feel better."

Jack waits, but he doesn't explain further. "And?"

"I just… wanted to feel better." He squirms down again, so that his voice comes from inside the blankets. "It didn't work."

Fighting down his first angry reaction, and the second one, and a third which was rather cruelly sarcastic and makes the Doctor tense even unvoiced, Jack takes a deep breath and holds it. The Doctor is clearly both mortified and deeply upset, and nothing Jack could say in anger will help any of that. He lets the breath and the anger out in a long sigh. Cruelty is not what he expects from himself when the Doctor needs support. "I'm sorry. I was gone when you needed me."

He feels the Doctor turn his face up, though he is still hidden. " _I'm_ sorry," he says unhappily. "It was stupid of me."

"I hope you don't expect me to argue with that," Jack says wryly; the Doctor gives him a wet little laugh and emerges from the blankets just enough to tuck his head under Jack's chin. "Even I don’t stand out in _freezing_ rain. Are you alright now?" He nods but doesn't say anything, which is far from confidence inspiring. Jack lets his hands wander slowly over the Doctor's back as he considers whether he is likely to be able to extract an assurance that the Time Lord is not truly inclined to harm himself whilst avoiding the implication that he believes there is anything wrong at all. “Are you -”

But that’s when the bell rings again and Jack is happy enough to take the distraction. Making predictable but halfhearted grumbles about people fussing, the Doctor settles deeper into the bed as the door closes with a small _thump_ and a tentative voice calls, "Doctor?"

"Yes, send her in," the pile of blankets mutters sarcastically, "she's already seen him naked once this week."

"In here, Mareen!" Jack calls, laughing. He tweaks the Doctor's ear in passing as he disentangles his arms. "I doubt that was the reasoning."

Poking her head cautiously around the doorframe, Mareen blinks at them. "Uncle Jack? I'm sorry, I thought you were out in the forest. The Doctor didn't come to school this morning, and no one answered -"

"He'd just woken up when they rang earlier, wouldn't let me up. Ran afoul of some of that rain," Jack says, declining to elaborate in the face of a rather accusatory look. "Thank you for checking in. He's alright. Aren't you."

"Go away," the Doctor says obligingly, and wedges a thigh between Jack's.

"Hey!"

Mareen is laughing at him with a straight face, so bittersweetly familiar. "Bad patient, is he?" she inquires, with unconvincing sympathy.

"You have no idea. I, uh -" Now those clever fingers are involved in persuading him to hurry it up; Jack snaps his teeth closed over a shuddering moan as the sensitive skin below his hip bone is ruthlessly exploited. "I'll keep him home tomorrow too, if you could let someone know? Can you - can you put the kettle on before you go?"

"Can and will," she assures him with an angelic grin. "You take good care of him, Uncle Jack."

Amusement warring with his pro-forma glare, he waves her away. "Doctor," he hisses as soon as she's out of sight, " _inappropriate_."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you encouraged my exhibitionistic tendencies," the Doctor suggests, but his hand has stilled on Jack's hip, long fingers moulding close to its contours, mind strayed to their lost audience. His lips lay against Jack's chest next to his heart, warmed to match his skin; his breath ghosts cool between them. Jack sighs. Whatever it is that's wrong, it's his going away that's done it, for sure; he has been selfish in his grief, leaving the Doctor to stand alone here, to bear the emptiness of the tower without any hope of escape. Maybe he doesn't need assurances; he just needs to _be_ here.

"Let's get something warm in you, and -"

The thumb resting in the hollow of his hip sweeps lower abruptly, drawing heat down to pool in his groin. "I was working on that," the Doctor points out as Jack swallows a startled noise.

"That’s not - alright, maybe later - gods, you make things so hard sometimes -" Too emotionally wrung out to contain his laughter, the Doctor snorts, buries his face in the bed as his shoulders shake; Jack finds it a fair trade for his dignity. "Yes, fine, I walked right into that one. Laugh it up, icicle man." _Keep those hearts beating strong and steady._  

"I'm sorry, Jack," the Time Lord says, sobering quickly at the flash of fear. He stretches up, dark eyes meeting Jack's for the first time since he woke, to kiss him gently. "Thank you for coming back."

Nuzzling into his lover's soft nightcap, Jack takes a breath that smells of ice and woodsmoke, exhales a little more warmth for him. "I always come back," he says, and hopes it will always be in as good time.

-+-+-+-

 


	37. Home is where the pain is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: uh... fingers in mouths? With and without custard. And other things too, briefly._

For days the Doctor had waited with increasing anxiety for Jack to reopen the question of whether he was _alright_ , or what had he been thinking, but Jack avoids it assiduously. He knows what it does to his Captain to find him endangered, but he shows none of the distress that must still be there, burying it under a cheerful, attentive front. He begins to involve himself with the life of the town; he takes up carpentry again, to Mareen’s evident satisfaction and the Doctor’s bafflement. He comes home early enough they can eat together every day. He doesn’t ask anything; he doesn’t try to fix what can’t be fixed. He doesn’t push, and he doesn’t fuss. He simply _stays_ , unasked.

“Don’t you need to go check on your trees?” the Doctor asks, weeks later when the curiosity grows stronger than he can contain. “Make sure they’re healthy, or whatever you do?”

“Oh, no,” Jack says, smiling at him over his shoulder as he scrubs the stairs. “Jana’s taking care of that this year. All yours, love.”

Guilt gnawing a hole through him like acid, the Doctor realises Jack blames himself for his misadventure. "I don't -" _need babysitting_ , he almost says, but Jack has done nothing of the sort; has done nothing objectionable at all. The accusation would be cruel when the Doctor had _wanted_ him home and Jack has unstintingly given up yet more of what he loves to meet the Doctor's needs, unthanked, unnoticed. "I don't mean to take you from it," he says quietly instead.

Turning, Jack searches his face; he seems concerned by what he finds there. "I want to be here, Doctor."

Swallowing nervously, the Doctor attempts a statement he has been too afraid to voice, much as he believes it true. "I wasn't trying to hurt myself." In his relief at finding it so, more slips out - "Though I didn't much care, either." He claps a hand over his mouth and turns away from his Captain's knowing eyes. The vulnerability of living here is unbearable, some days; little wonder so much of his time is spent in silence. Barnable had asked so little of him in that regard. There had been that month of opening his veins and spilling truth like blood, _for Jack, all for Jack_ , but otherwise he had let the Doctor hide behind the soft lies and misdirections, the distance of stories, and rarely made him feel as though the depths of his mind were on display. Known, sometimes, but not public.

The bright stillness of Jack's fixed point envelopes him, strong arms pulling him close, warm breath in his ear. The Doctor has the most ridiculous urge to cry. “Hey,” Jack says soothingly. “It’s going to be alright. Let me take care of you for a while. You know I like to. If you want me out of your way for a couple days just let me know.”

Fighting down the congested feeling, the Doctor laughs into his lover’s shoulder. “That is not at all my concern, Captain.”

“Well, then,” Jack says, satisfied; he tightens his arms and nuzzles into the Doctor’s neck, cheek searing against the sensitive skin below his jaw, the immortal flame under his skin reassuringly bright and strong and steady. “You were trying to feel better. I can help with that.”

It's hard to argue with when he already feels so much better, now that his sun has given up tossing him out into the darkness without notice. But the idea nags at him that there is something wrong with this plan; or why else had Jack been leaving so much, except that home is where the pain is? Still, whatever else may be said of the Doctor’s Captain, he is a man possessed of unshakeable will when it comes to the Doctor’s wellbeing and he devotes himself to the cause with a vengeance. The evenings are not so bad, anymore. They lean together by the fire, reading or talking, darning socks or knitting or sometimes doing nothing at all, and if there is more silence than there used to be the Doctor has no difficulty telling himself that they are simply _used_ to each other, like a well-worn glove or a favourite hat; like the handle of the cane Jack has been offering to replace, everything worn smooth. Despite the lingering guilt, Jack hides whatever distress had been driving him previously so well the Doctor finds it easy to forget and let the days and months slip by.

As well, of course, Jack is an excellent homemaker in the more traditional sense: the cooking, the cleaning, the management of the Doctor’s tendency to overflow every restriction and escape every confinement, even if it is only the confinement of clutter to horizontal surface. He works so hard to make the tower a home the Doctor can’t stand it.

“I don’t _need_ all this, Jack,” he protests, feeling hemmed in by the unceasing attentiveness.

The flash of hurt in Jack’s eyes is gone so fast he would have missed it if he hadn’t already known it would be there. “Alright," Jack agrees easily, retrieving the plate containing two different kinds of freshly baked biscuits he had just set down. "Just tea? I'll -"

Frustrated and sorry to have caused distress, the Doctor sets a hand on his wrist to stop him. "Not the biscuits, Jack, I just mean - all of it, it's not right, you do too much -" but that's _worse_ , now he's gone blank and stoic, pulling away. Cursing himself for a fool, the Doctor remembers how very, very delicate the question of rejection is yet, between them. Pushing himself to his feet, he catches Jack with a hand behind his neck. "Let me start over, please?" Expression wary, Jack nods incrementally; the Doctor leans forward to brush a kiss feather-light over his lips and takes the biscuits back. "These smell delicious. Thank you. I'm worried that… that you think what you _do_ is more important than what you _are_. Who you are. You don't need to do all this for me. You are _here_ , Jack, that's enough."

"Who I am? But I’m not -" Brows drawn close in concern, Jack considers him. Then his face relaxes, lips quirking up into a wry half smile. "Well, that's alright, then," he says, and the Doctor is not quite brave enough to ask _what is?_ "I'm good at being here." Whatever he managed to convince Jack of, the hurt is gone; so when Jack adds, "But it's alright to do things whilst I'm here, isn't it?" he finds he can't very well do anything but agree.

To the Doctor’s relief, Jack stops trying quite so hard after that. Although it isn’t that he does less, or that any task suffers from lack of attention; only that he does it all with less of an eye toward the Doctor’s approval. He still spends a great deal of effort on the Doctor’s comfort.

“What are you making? It smells good,” the Doctor asks as he hangs up his coat a few weeks later, follows his nose into the kitchen where Jack does not seem to be making anything, just washing up. The Doctor can't hold back his smile as Jack turns to greet him; he is wearing the ridiculous apron Barnable had produced for him after one too many comments about frilly costumes, and the Doctor has never known that to be for _his_ benefit. It had occasioned another of those interactions the Doctor could only play baffled audience to.

Jack had laughed, and got up to model it immediately. “Everyone in town knows I wear a lacy pinny now, I’m sure.”

“Oh, no, I said it was for a joke,” Barnable said easily. With a hint of a smirk, he waved his finger in a circle to indicate Jack should turn about. To the Doctor’s great fascination, Jack’s face had gone crimson as he turned. Face front again, the intent look in his eyes was very familiar from all the times the Doctor has pushed him up against a wall.

Entire volumes of subtext hidden beneath the words, Jack had observed, “Joke’s on me.”

“Joke’s on you.” Barnable had looked very satisfied, and there had been a softness about Jack the rest of the day, and the Doctor hadn’t understood _at all_ but he suddenly feels terribly ill-suited to being the sole custodian of Jack’s heart.

“It’s cool, I expect,” Jack says, grabbing a towel to dry his hands. He indicates the table with his elbow, where a bowl covered by a plate is set. “The milk and eggs were going off. Too warm yesterday.”

“Custard!” the Doctor cries happily, shoving the plate away and dipping his fingers in the bowl without a care. “Mm. Lovely.”

“All the myriad cuisines of a universe of stars, all the gastronomic delights to be found in this very town even, all the things I go out of my way to cook, and what he wants is custard,” Jack laments, shaking his head. He watches the Doctor lick his fingers with a yearning sort of satisfaction, and if the Doctor can’t stop him from going to all this effort without hurting him terribly, at least he can make sure Jack enjoys it too.

Dipping his fingers again, the Doctor makes to raise them to his mouth then darts his hand out to paint a pale stripe over Jack’s lips instead. “You missed some,” he says, sucking the residue off his fingers, watching Jack’s eyes go wide and then crinkle in laughter, “just there.”

“Oh, did I?”

“Not to worry, I'll save you.” A deep, pleased hum reverberates in Jack's chest and his eyes slip closed as the Doctor licks delicately at his cheek, the corner of his mouth, carefully cleans away every trace of sticky sweet from his skin. Jack stands perfectly still and lets him take all the time he wants. Hoping for that rumbling hum again the Doctor strokes a thumb along his jaw, flattens a hand against the warm skin of his cheek, and as his tongue pushes between yielding lips he feels Jack's arms come around him like the arms of mountains, irresistible and secure. When the hum starts back up he leans forward to press himself full-length against his Captain.

“Hey,” Jack says softly, the heat of his hands making ephemeral trails on the Doctor's back. “Hard day?” He moves, reaches for something, and when the Doctor opens his eyes he finds custard coated fingers and bright blue eyes waiting for him.

Turning in Jack’s arm just enough to reach, the Doctor hums noncommittally as he licks. He can feel quite well the effect he is having on his Captain, but Jack makes no sign of impatience. “Just the usual summer maintenance. The bridge at the sawmill needs rebuilding, it can’t wait again.” The rapid freeze-thaw cycle of early summer leaves behind new destruction every year, but this one, at least, is not a surprise.

Tucking the Doctor snug under his arm, Jack dips his fingers again. "It can wait for custard," he suggests, and the Doctor is very happy to agree.

As long as the Doctor can avoid saying hurtful things, matters seem quiet and easy between them - although perhaps easier for the Doctor than for Jack. But he can’t help that. It seems to be what Jack wants, and if it leaves the Doctor itching to demand to know what makes Jack think him an invalid, some days, he tries not to show it. It takes all summer for him to notice another change: Jack doesn’t stand in the rain anymore. As if he thinks his bad example might provoke the Doctor into trying it again, he avoids it; avoids staying outside too long, avoids getting too wet, avoids so much as mentioning the joy he gets from the outdoors. It leaves the Doctor feeling yet more damaged, more inadequate, when he realises. Taking care of him like this cannot possibly be enough to make a fulfilling life, to help his Captain heal and rebuild and move on.

The worst change of all, though, is that Jack doesn't talk about Barnable any more. Although it had hurt, sometimes terribly, they had both needed it, but now the brittleness between them grows thicker each day; a crackling film, then a coat of ice, then a solid pane of glass that leaves them both outside, looking in, silently trying to do right by each other.

-+-+-

“You heard anything recently from Her Spikiness?”

The Doctor chokes on his tea. “You don’t _call_ her that, surely?”

Rolling his eyes, Jack points out, “I don’t actually enjoy being exterminated, as temporary an inconvenience as it is.”

“ _Jack_. She’s really, ah, really - you’re very similar,” the Time Lord settles on, much to Jack’s amusement.

"That's your best recommendation? I already have to put up with myself for eternity, what do I need with other people _like_ me?"

The Doctor stares at him for a moment, then the corners of his mouth slide up and he ducks his head. "Well, you're just the sort of person _I_ like to have around," he says without even a hint of defensiveness. Something Jack has been hiding away tight and cold inside his soul melts all at once into a sunstruck, needy little puddle. Feeling oddly fragile, he sets aside his own tea and slides off the sofa to his knees, shuffles around until he is settled on the thick rug between his lover’s legs, leant against the less-than-human warmth of his thigh. Cool fingertips slide down his face. “Jack?”

“Please,” he says, swallowing around the tightness in his throat. His eyes are closed; it feels like he might cry, and he doesn’t want to. “Please let me make you happy.”

Fingers pressing harder for a moment, the Doctor takes an unsteady breath. “Every day, Jack. Every day you make me happy.”

And even though Jack knows it’s not that simple, even though he knows he can’t continue like this indefinitely, even though he knows he is _the wrong Jack_ , a placeholder for someone the Doctor misses more than breath - he has been trying so hard, for so long, and hearing the Doctor say it is the touch of redemption he so badly needs. Turning his head he kisses the finger that traces his lips, tastes it; opens his mouth and sucks it in when it doesn’t retreat. Under the quickly gone taste of dust and old paper there is a hint of clove and coriander from supper and the dry sweet-salt of his skin, the taste of comfort, and Jack feels now that he would be happy with nothing more tonight, just this. The click of a teacup being set down, then another hand running gently through his hair. He hums quietly, content, mouthing at the finger providing just enough resistance that he can suck it in again, and again.

There is a gentle tug at his head, the Doctor drawing him upward. “Come here, Jack, up a little bit. Lie against me.” 

Jack lets himself be arranged, knelt there between his lover’s knees and draped over his lap, arms about his waist, head resting against the slight curve of belly as the Doctor slouches down in the cushions. “Oh, buttons -” the Doctor says, nudging him up to undo his waistcoat; it leaves Jack lying against shirt buttons but he doesn’t care either way, except that being closer to skin is better. Cool fingers rub his scalp and the finger in his mouth is replaced by another, and he lets it become all his world. He doesn’t open his eyes.

The fire is a gentle warmth against his back as he learns this new finger millimetre by millimetre; kisses the crease where it meets the Doctor’s hand, licks up each side, examining the different tastes and textures, the roughness of the knuckles, the small tufts of hair, the calloused pads. He holds the tip of it against his teeth and tongue for a moment, studying the weight of it, then sucks it in, a little, and a little more, and a little more. The length of it is temptation, the slide of it over his tongue sublime.

Jack becomes aware that the Doctor is speaking. “- so good to me, Jack, everything you do, every day. You musn’t imagine I don’t notice, only I don’t know how to thank you. How could I? But I’ll try to do better, to - to show you that you do make me happy. _Oh_ ,” he sighs, as Jack takes his finger all the way in. “I want you to be happy too.” Nudging the bone-deep contentment pooled in every cell of his body to the front of his mind for his Time Lord to see, Jack sucks a little harder. The Doctor moans and Jack can feel his cock stirring beneath his chest; his own cock has leaked a damp spot into his trousers, but he can’t help that. He is content to abide by the Doctor’s wishes. “My Jack,” the Doctor whispers, and offers him another finger.

Completely relaxed over his lover’s lap with no concern in the world other than the finger in his mouth, Jack has no idea how long it has been when the Doctor finally groans and shifts his hips to grind his cock against Jack’s chest. “Captain, I - I’m sorry, you’re still -” Jack simply slips down a bit to stroke his cheek over the hard length there. The Doctor makes a beautifully needy sound, finger falling from Jack’s lips; when he turns his head to mouth at the wet spot the Doctor jerks. “ _Captain_ -”

Sliding a hand to the buttons on his trousers, Jack opens his eyes at last to look up for permission. The sight that greets him will forever be engraved in his memory, if there is any mercy in forever for him; he hopes it will, prays it will. Hair sticking up in back as if he has been turning his head against the sofa, the Doctor watches him with eyes gone deep and devouring, dark with barely contained hunger, flashing as they catch the firelight. His lower lip is caught in his teeth, not in coy affectation but chewed and abused as if used to keep himself silent. Suddenly in a very different mood, Jack stares in fascination at the haphazardly undone bowtie, the unbuttoned collar, the flush that darkens the Doctor's face and neck and continues down under his shirt. “Wow,” he breathes.

The Doctor groans again, pushes up against the hand on him as if he can’t help himself. “Jack, please, I - it won’t take much - if you want to, only if you want to -”

Flicking buttons open with a speed born of long practice, Jack smiles up at his lover. “I promise,” he says, pulling trousers and pants down as the Doctor lifts his hips. “Nothing I want more.” The hand in his hair is very carefully not pushing but when Jack's tongue touches the base of the Doctor’s cock his fingers tense and he makes an explosive noise, half-cry, half-moan, through clenched teeth. Jack reaches up to free his lower lip, clearly in danger. “Don’t damage that,” he says, pitching his voice low and smooth. “I’ll want it later.” The Doctor’s eyes go impossibly wider.

He moans as Jack licks a slow stripe up the underside of his cock, squirms as Jack moves to one side, then the other. “Please,” he whimpers, as Jack licks very slowly along the top, just as he did with his fingers, savouring every second; but this is a very different situation, because he _really_ hadn’t been joking when he said it wouldn’t take much. Jack glances up to find the Time Lord’s head tilted back, eyes closed, sucking in deep breaths of air as he tries to keep control of himself. He seems to expect Jack to continue at this pace, and is determined to let him.

Grinning wickedly, Jack takes a breath, drops his head until the Doctor’s cock touches the back of his throat, and sucks hard.

All his control broken, the Doctor yells as he thrusts into Jack’s mouth, hand clenched in his hair, again, and again, taking him over and using him like he wants, like he _needs_ , like he never gets anymore except for the rare, brief moment like this - and then he’s coming and Jack swallows as he shudders, sucks steadily until he’s done and his hand hangs limply in Jack’s hair. Pulling away carefully, Jack licks his lips and lays his head down against skin taut and flickering with occasional aftershocks, feeling more at peace than he has in months. Years, maybe.

“I’m -”

“That had better not be an apology. You know damn well I like that.”

The Doctor pauses for a moment, then waves his hand vaguely. “Can I -”

Jack smiles and kisses the skin where his shirt is rucked up. “I'll take care of it. You can watch, if you like.”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor agrees, eyes half-lidded. He relaxes down into the cushions as Jack backs up a little, undoes his trousers and frees his cock. Turning a little so the firelight illuminates him, Jack kneels up, takes himself in hand, and loses himself in the way the Doctor watches him: his usual reticence overcome by the afterglow, the fondness he rarely shows so openly lighting his eyes, softening his face. As he gets close the Doctor watches his face more and his cock less; heat blooms in him where that otherworldly attention lingers. Jack looks away from the intensity of his gaze for a moment, only to look back and find the Doctor reaching a hand up to him. “Would you like… fingers? Finish the way you began?” he suggests tentatively.

Jack has rarely heard a better idea. He nods, panting, opens his mouth, and the Doctor pushes two fingers in deep, presses against his tongue sliding out, pushes in again. Jack sucks hard, trying to keep them, trying to make them part of him, and that’s all he really wanted tonight, isn’t it? Just that. That’s all he needed. He comes with the taste of his lover’s skin on his tongue, the familiar coolness of him in his mouth, and doesn’t let him go even when he tucks himself away, tidied with the Doctor’s handkerchief, when he folds forward to lay his head back in the Doctor’s lap, feels beloved fingers in his hair again. All right again, all silent, all whole. All loved.

What seems to Jack like a very long while later, the fingers gently exploring his mouth begin to move more purposefully, tilting his head up. He doesn't lift his cheek from the soft skin that smells like home, but he does open his eyes when the Doctor whispers, "Jack?" Mouth quirked in a curious smile, he extracts his hand from Jack’s mouth at last, touches his own lower lip. "What did you need this for?"

Jack smiles, and watches the shadows shifting across his lover's face, and waits for thoughts to resurface. “Kiss you,” he decides, finally. “Going to.”

"I'd like that," the Doctor says, beaming down at him like a particularly besotted sun. He fusses Jack's hair away from his face. "And as really wonderfully warm and comfortable as you are, I think I'd also like to pull my trousers up."

"Hm. No." The Doctor raises a brow quizzically and Jack grins. “Down.” Intending to scoop him up and ravish him further in bed, Jack tries to stand - and then pitches forward onto the laughing Time Lord, legs gone completely numb from kneeling for so long. “I was going to carry you to bed!” he cries, betrayed, trying to sort out the unresponsive weights at the other end of his body.

Obviously still delighted with the evening, the Doctor pushes Jack off him, shifts around enough to pull his trousers up, then lays himself over Jack’s ungainly sprawl. “Kiss me here,” he suggests, and suits actions to words without giving Jack time to argue.

Later, after they’ve made it to bed on three and a half sleepy, relaxed legs, the Doctor says, “We spoke a few months ago.”

“Who? Oh, Her Spikiness.”

“Don’t you dare. She’ll give me that _look_ , and I’ll have to apologise for you, as if I have any control over your behaviour at all.” But he smiles as he says it, so Jack doesn’t have to point out how ridiculous it is to disclaim responsibility for someone and order them about in the same breath. “No news, really. She still won’t let me come up.”

Pulling him closer, Jack buries his nose in the Doctor’s hair and sighs. “At least you’re sensible about something.”

“Base calumny,” the Doctor grumbles, but the warmth and the late hour conspire to put an end to his complaints and Jack spends the time before sleep bears him away as well trying to think of new ways to cheer a Time Lord who insists on keeping himself prisoner.

-+-+-+-

 


	38. Ending conditions

“How does this end, Doctor?” Confused, the Doctor squints to try to make out what book Jack is reading. His Captain snorts. “No. _This_. This siege, Trenzalore. What are the ending conditions?”

“My death,” the Doctor says, which isn’t quite what he had expected to say. He tries to hide the flinch and bury the truth. “Among other possibilities. Perhaps they'll all get bored.” Between the truth field and his tendency to forget that this Jack does not already know all his secrets, an unguarded comment is more likely to end things than any decision on his part; but not today, not yet, he isn't ready yet.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Jack asks cheerfully - which isn't _at all_ what the Doctor had expected him to say. He laughs at the expression on the Doctor's face, a laugh full of splintered edges. Abruptly more worried for his Captain than himself, the Doctor marks his book and sets it aside. “Come on,” Jack wheedles. “We need an adventure. You've faked your death before, let's do it again.”

The Doctor laughs, but he can't muster quite enough amusement to be convincing. It's Jack who is bored, dangerously so, confined here among countless reminders of love lost; the Daleks will never get bored. “I'm open to suggestions, Captain, but unless you have a very good one I'm stuck here for the duration.” Although he has to look away, he manages to say lightly enough, “You needn't be.”

“Hey, now,” Jack says, dropping the bloodthirsty grin. Setting his book down as well, he slips in behind the Doctor on the sofa. “It's no fun without you. We’ll think of something.”

"You may, at that." And then he'll have to find a way around it, because he is not leaving. No longer for Barnable, but maybe… maybe it was never about Barnable at all. Maybe what he meant was _for the children_. Still it's no call to ruin Jack's enthusiasm. "It's just been so long, Jack, I'm sorry."

Jack pulls him back against his chest, shifting around until they are both comfortable. Without the third leg to their triangle, they have had a tendency to collapse into a line lately. His hand massages the Doctor's right hip slowly, which is always welcome; the muscles tend to seize up. "I was thinking about it," he says, voice a soothing rumble against the Doctor's back. "We should go to some fancy beach, when we're done here. We'll stop some evil scheme or hostile takeover or murderous plantlife and then we can just sit back and enjoy the sun. No ice, no snow, no… no waiting around. We'll just enjoy it, and then leave, and go somewhere else… sunny."

"Jack," the Doctor breathes, hearts broken nearly enough to tell him.

"There's no hurry," Jack says quickly. "I don't mean that. I've all the time in the universe." His hand is running up and down the Doctor's thigh now, steady and solid, his breath trickling warm through the Doctor's hair.

"The diamond sands of Shoa," the Doctor suggests, deciding there's no harm in playing along for now. "Or the centennial tidal plains on Harallapralar, if you don't mind there's no sand. It is sunny. One can't touch the ground when it's flooded - muddy water quite ruins the effect - but they have these lovely little clear-hulled boats -"

"Do they have the fussy drinks with the little umbrellas? Fruit on sticks?" 

"I'm sure I have no idea. Can't stand them, and I shan't kiss you if you taste of them. Especially," he shudders, " _guava_." Jack laughs, and the Doctor twists around a bit to let him reach better, presses his face to his Captain's chest. A number of kisses fall on his hair.

"I'll kiss you anyway. It's not as if you can run away."

"I shall have to resort to other methods of stopping you, I suppose."

"Yes," Jack says, hands beginning to wander, "you might even have to tie me up. They'll have convenient trees, probably."

The Doctor sits bolt upright, indignant. " _Trees?_ You are such an - an _exhibitionist!_ "

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Jack grins as he pushes him down to his back, ignoring his halfhearted flailing, and clambers over him to straddle his hips.

"Captain!"

"Too late," his Captain declares, punctuating it with more kisses. "You should have tied me up when you had the chance."

Hands on the conveniently placed backside, the Doctor squeezes as he pulls Jack firmly against him. Jack moans quietly against his neck. "I still could."

"Anytime," Jack agrees breathlessly, making no attempt to pull away. Rather the opposite, in fact. It’s the way they’ve always played, of course, but the Doctor’s mistakes still haunt him; the more for the way he seems to repeat them as soon as he forgets. Making Jack his captive again is a topic he would be happy to avoid for the rest of his life.

“Convince me I shouldn’t,” the Doctor says, well aware that Jack would be just as happy convincing him he _should_. “Do something remarkable with those hands, Captain.”

Jack grins, and sits up, and begins removing his own shirts.

Lips twitching, the Doctor tries to look stern. He suspects it is a complete failure. “I know you have a high opinion of yourself, Captain, but I assure you, you look even better _tied up_. This is not a convincing demonstration.”

“You’ll have a better view, though,” Jack says as he drops his shirts to the floor. It’s hard to argue with so the Doctor contents himself with looking unimpressed, which shortly becomes intensely difficult to maintain. Jack's hands are everywhere, calling fever where he touches; lips and tongue follow with a wetness cool in the air but entirely unsoothing. It’s not until Jack pulls him up to free him from jacket and braces and shirt that the Doctor sees a tear spill down his cheek and realises all the determined desire driving him is not for sex, but for distraction. Maybe it has always been for distraction. For all the Doctor had never wanted it to be so, Jack _is_ trapped here, no less real for it being his own nature that keeps him bound.

Building arousal dissipating on the instant, the Doctor tries to raise a hand to his lover’s face; he ends up tangled up between braces and shirtsleeve, laughing helplessly as Jack untangles him. “Jack,” he says, laying them both back down when he can, holding his Captain tight. “Tell me no more often, Jack, please, don’t cry. I don’t want to make you cry.”

Jack doesn't answer, just presses closer. Threading fingers through the short hairs at the nape of his neck and up to grip gently, the Doctor tilts his head back. Jack lets himself be manipulated without protest, but he doesn't open his eyes and his face is wet with tears. He shivers as the Doctor licks at the salty trace. Attempt at distraction derailed, Jack sighs and says, “I’m alright. I suppose that was much more convincing than I meant it to be?”

“Perhaps so,” the Doctor admits. “Depends how convincing you were trying to be.”

Jack hides his face against the Doctor’s neck again. “Not at all,” he mumbles. Silent, the Doctor lets his hands roam slowly up and down the smooth skin of Jack’s back, the silk-over-steel feel of him, tense as he crouches there rather than resting his full weight on his lover. Tense, and distressed, and _unhappy_. The Doctor rolls them to the side so they are just tangled up together, Jack pressed safe and secure into the soft back of the sofa; and that is a little better.

"You're not happy here, are you? Without Barnable." Jack lifts his head, a wistful look in his eyes, a flush in his cheeks. "Distraction isn't a solution, Jack. You shouldn't stay, if you're not happy."

He doesn't argue the point; it feels like missing a stair. "I wouldn't be _more_ happy if I left," he says instead. "Not until you can, too. Would you be happier if I left?"

"Not at all," the Doctor whispers, and closes his eyes as Jack's lips meet his gently.

"Then I'll stay."

Determined now to do right by his Captain, the Doctor cannot let it rest there. “On the planet, Jack, but you mustn’t stay _here_ every day. Go out, wander. Go to Wrenshall. Go back to the forest. You’ve been neglecting yourself to take care of me for years now.”

“You’ll need me,” Jack says haltingly, still haunted by memory, “and I won’t be here. I’ll come back and… I might be too late, next time. It might have been days more, if I hadn’t been wet and cold myself.”

“I won’t stand in the rain,” the Doctor promises. _I’ll be careful_ , he means, _I’ll be here when you get back._ “Mareen will check on me, you know. She'll probably want me over for supper.”

Without ever quite agreeing, Jack seems to accept the charge. He starts out easy, a trip to Wrenshall; the evening alone is distasteful, but Jack’s enjoyment is more than worth it, even with the distinctly guilty overtones. That will wear off, the Doctor hopes, along with the trapped desperation, and perhaps some happiness will wear back in.

-+-+-

“There are Weeping Angels out there,” the Doctor thinks to warn Jack, several years later. In his defence, it has been nearly two hundred years since any were active. “Probably. Mostly in the wild parts, I expect, northish.”

Brow furrowed curiously, Jack lowers the bowl he is washing. “Doing what?”

“Deteriorating, I should think. They starve, you know. Actually they’d probably run screaming from you, if they could scream.” He pauses, amused, taps his finger on the table. “Or run.”

“They kind of… smell me, actually, now,” Jack says wryly. “I’m lousy with artron energy, but they’re after the chronon energy of that displaced timeline. The life not lived. And I _am_ the life lived.”

“You can’t be displaced,” the Doctor agrees, with a contented sigh. And as long as he has the still point of his Captain to hold to, he cannot be displaced either, much as time might try. Here he stands; here he remains. “I wouldn’t call you _lousy_. More _tingly_.”

“Oh?” Then that immense stillness is swallowing him down, warm breath in his ear followed by hot tongue, fingers slipping into his hair to tilt his head to the side.

“Captain!” he squeaks in surprise, then tries to pretend he didn’t.

The tongue continues down his neck, trailing gooseflesh in its wake. “Tingly?”

“Yes!” Part of him is still expecting some caustic remark from Barnable about proper uses of kitchen tables, the Doctor realises; but that beloved voice will not be interrupting them again.

“Nothing stopping me having my wicked way with you right here,” Jack whispers against his neck, as if reading his mind; he has begun recently to speak of Barnable again, which is a great relief to the Doctor. “Unless you are.” But he wants the reassurance, wants the warmth, wants everything they can have together. Closing his eyes, the Doctor tilts his head a little further, and that is all the sign Jack needs.

-+-+-

Head down in the painstaking process of hand-machining a new regulator to replace an important and rapidly failing one in the hydroelectric generator, the Doctor has lost track of what season it is, much less the time of day or uninteresting questions like _when is tea?_ His stomach grumbles uncomfortably again as he reaches for an angled chisel; perhaps not entirely lost track, at that. "Is that you, Barnable?" he calls hopefully when he hears a noise in the kitchen, but no one answers and his attention settles back on his work without having fully left it. 

There is the noise in the kitchen again, like someone shifting things about on the countertop. The Doctor looks up, and opens his mouth, and remembers. The knowledge settles cold around him once more, the pleasant shield of distraction unrecoverable once punctured, like a soap bubble. "I don't suppose it is, no," he says quietly. "But what is it, then?"

As stealthily as his wooden leg and cane allow, he creeps to the kitchen where to mutual surprise he finds an ashmouse staring at him. The little creatures are pests, mostly, but clever ones; round and furry, short of snout and tail and smaller than their brethren of the forests and fens, they make their home in humanity’s shadow, first around the charcoal pits and then nestled close to the warmth of houses. Although not _in_ his house, previously. 

“Jack won’t like you creeping about in here,” he tells it, more gently than he had intended. It stares at him a moment more, then stuffs another crumb into its mouth, hops to the floor, and brazenly flees the kitchen. He rummages for his own crumbs, oddly cheered.

Not a week later he comes home from lessons with the children to find Jack aggressively shifting furniture. “What in the world are you doing? We’ve just had the chimney cleaned… haven’t we?”

“There’s a mouse,” Jack says, and bangs his head on the table he was peering behind. “Ow. In the breadbox!”

“Oh, dear,” the Doctor says guiltily, and retreats.

“You couldn’t use your sonic, could you?” Jack asks later, regarding his bread suspiciously as they eat. “To find it, or track it? Foraging is one thing but invading the breadbox is unacceptable.”

“Track a _mouse?_ ” The Doctor aims for _dubious but willing_. “I suppose I can try.”

Jack grins. “No setting for that, I know. Just a thought.”

The next day, as soon as he gets home, the Doctor heads upstairs to where he had previously tracked the ashmouse to its nest in the wardrobe in Barnable’s room. “He mustn’t find you here,” he explains apologetically, as he gathers up the pile of old socks and yarn ends the enterprising rodent has repurposed into a warm, wooly home. “It would hurt him. Although I don’t think Barnable would have minded, so long as you only took the ends.” Leaning in gingerly, the Time Lord indulges himself for a moment in the last, lingering bit of scent of his lost companion, closed away here and undisturbed for years. There is no reason he should ever _have_ to repurpose this room, unless he wants to; and he doesn’t want to.

He sets the nest in a bowl, along with some bread and cheese, and covers it once the mouse is inside; manoeuvring the thing down the stairs is a trial and leaves him with neither his cane nor a hand to use it. Hobbling awkwardly, the Doctor carries the bowl with nest and mouse out to the shed and uncovers it.

Unsurprisingly, the ungrateful nuisance bolts immediately.

“I quite agree,” the Doctor says, leaning on the wall. “Let’s not repeat the experience, shall we? Just leave the badger alone and you’ll get along quite well out here, I expect.” He tells Jack he had seen the mouse fleeing and there had been a chink in the masonry, which are true, separately. But in any case there are no more mice in the breadbox.

-+-+-

Thirty years from the day of Barnable’s death, the Doctor broaches a topic that has been bothering him. He suspects Jack no longer remembers the significance of the day; he lights a candle for Barnable every year on his birthday, but the day of his death has passed unremarked for years.

“Jack,” the Doctor says, as if it were a question of no consequence at all, “it’s getting a bit crowded in here, don’t you think? Is there anywhere we could move the loom?”

“No,” Jack says, and leaves the table.

Progress enough for one day, the Doctor decides.

Jack spends the rest of the day, and that night, upstairs in Barnable’s room. The occasional exclamation or thump or less identifiable noise drifts from the stairs, but the Doctor leaves him to whatever it is. When he gets up in the morning Jack has moved on to doing something with the loom in the main room.

"He wouldn't want it sitting here unused," Jack says, as if continuing a conversation.

"Not at all," the Doctor agrees, carefully neutral. Jack taking up weaving was not his intention, but perhaps he wouldn't mind, at that. Sometimes he fancies he can still hear the sound of the loom of a quiet evening; and they're all quiet evenings, anymore.

"I'll go see if they want it at the weaving hall." 

Shocked, the Doctor realises Jack is _disassembling_ the loom; carefully, methodically, without pausing. "I didn't mean…" If anyone had dared suggest he get rid of his collection of Barnable’s unfinished manuscripts, no matter he is unlikely to ever look at them again, he might have suggested something unprintable. "I just thought the back corner, maybe."

"It's a tool, not… not a relic. A _good_ tool, and it's meant to be used. We both know I don't have the temperament." He looks up at the Doctor, finally, a smile of immense sweetness and aching depth on his face. "I've no right to hide it away.” As the Doctor bends to kiss his upturned brow, Jack adds quietly, “Just this one, though.”

The next time Barnable's birthday comes around, no candle appears in the window.

The Doctor doesn’t comment when there is a candle the next night. And the next, and the next, and the next; every night for a year Jack’s silent apology burns, tiny and brave, pouring its faint light out into the devouring night. The Doctor makes sure the candle box remains fully stocked, and tries to hold Jack closer, and safer, and more kindly, and the memories fade eventually, as they always do.

Jack has always preferred to run from his ghosts; the Doctor is used to living with his.

-+-+-

Watching Jack come unmoored from the time flowing by around them is much worse than the Doctor expected. He _was_ expecting it, he supposes; as easily as Jack gathers people about him, and as hard as he has worked to ground them both in the life of the town, most of his ties had, in the end, involved Barnable. He tries to hold on, but soon enough the people who knew them together are gone as well, and then all Jack has are those who knew his art, or his words, or his cheer, but nothing of _Barnable_ , and nothing of the man Jack was with him. So he lets go, and faces and lives and time pass by and change and do not touch him, and the steady stillness in the tower grows stagnant and more silent. And still he stays, and tries to play the part of the Doctor’s Captain; but too often the vibrant spark that should light his way is missing.

If the Doctor thought either of them would be happier for his silence he would keep it, but it is breaking his hearts watching Jack pace like a caged tiger around and around the bounds of his world, town to town to forest and back, a tiny triangle of a dark little world at the bottom of a gravity well from which there is no escape for anyone but Jack. And perhaps, someday, Tasha. But Jack will not go, not until the Doctor orders him away.

Still, something has to change. Jack is back from Wrenshall again, looking a little more relaxed again, ready to stay until it’s too much, again. Closing his book carefully, the Doctor doesn’t look up as he asks, “What’s his name?”

There’s a clatter and the _clang_ of metal and Jack hisses, “ _Fuck_ ,” and that wasn’t at all what he was expecting so the Doctor does look up. Jack has his left hand caught tight in his right, jaw clenched. “Go grab me a towel, will you.”

What _had_ he been expecting, startling someone in the middle of carving? “I’m sorry,” the Doctor says, fleeing; and then, “I’m sorry,” again on his return.

“Slipped,” Jack grunts, wrapping the towel tight around a cut that stopped at bone. “Not your fault.” The Doctor sits back down to wait, and finally Jack gives in and asks, “Whose name?”

“Whomever you are seeing in Wrenshall.”

“I’m not _seeing_ anyone.” The things they can get away with saying, these days. It just takes practice, and the right mindset. “It’s just sex,” Jack adds, unwillingly. The Doctor waits. “I don’t want to give you a list.”

“ _Jack_.” Then he realises that was an answer worthy of himself, calculated to send him haring off on a tangent. “ _Is_ there a list?”

“No,” Jack admits sullenly. “And there’s no secrets, and there’s no breaking hearts either, so don't get your knickers in a twist.”

“It doesn’t help me to watch you be miserable, Jack.” He can see the impact as the words hit, the way Jack’s eyes go wide, that startling vulnerability he carries with him always brought to the surface again.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says quickly, “I'll stop -”

“You can’t just wish yourself happier. I don’t want -” The Doctor swallows, throat gone painfully tight. This is every bit as hard as he expected, and for this he had had high expectations. “You shouldn’t waste your time being unhappy, Jack, I don’t want that.”

Mouth twisted to one side quizzically, clearly uncertain how to deal with this carefully worded not-rejection, Jack comes to kneel between his feet, reaches up to brush his cheek with fleeting fire. "Giving you my time is - it's _nothing_ , Doctor. I have time. All I have is time. A fucking ocean of poisoned time, fine to sail on but lethal to share… I'd give you all my time, if I could. It's no good to me."

The Doctor shakes his head, captures his Captain's head to pull it close and kiss his brow. "It's not all you have. But if it's all I have of you, it's not you at all, is it? Go find something better, Captain." Hopefully something on the planet will satisfy, but if not - well, it has to happen someday.

Draping himself over the Doctor's lap like the very best kind of blanket, Jack is silent for a long time. Finally he peers upward, blue eyes glinting. “You’ll be alright? You won’t miss me?”

“Of course I’ll miss you, you daft idiot. Go anyway. Then come back.”

He goes away quite competently, although it takes a little more convincing; but he is truly unhappy, just now, and the Doctor is unhappy watching him. What he doesn't do much of is _come back_. When the attacks on Christmas resume, as they inevitably must so long as the Doctor remains, Jack is not there.

-+-+-+-

 


	39. Footloose and fancy free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: Doctor whump and deaths._

Jack stands considering the open expanse of snowfield stretching across the arm of mountain before him, wondering if the lack of obstruction is worth the lack of cover. _Something_ around here thinks he is infringing on its territory, something that watches him from the darkness above. There is a good crust on the snow for his skis and he'll make good time, but still -

A crackle of static erupts ahead of him and he freezes, trying to locate the source. There is nothing to see. Then a voice says clearly, "Got him!" and Jack is scrambling back under cover of the trees before he can think. What new attack is this, what enemy spends resources locating _him_ \- and why? To steal him away from the Doctor?

"Jack Harkness!" The voice of the Mother Superious rings out impatiently. "You are needed. Show yourself."

“Show _your_ self,” he challenges.

There is a frustrated noise that sounds rather like _stubborn idiot_ \- which actually is fairly convincing - and then a picture fades in that is not at all the face Jack was expecting. Instead it is a view of a room Jack doesn’t know, full of people he’s never seen, Tasha Lem standing in the centre, composed as always but nonetheless exuding the air of a harried military commander. 

“ _Now_ , Captain, We need you back at Christmas. We are engaged with Daleks on multiple levels and have lost contact with the Doctor. Transmat is jammed and teleport is spotty, but we will do our best to set you down near the sonic screwdriver.” At _lost contact_ Jack had thrown himself back into the open, dropped his ski poles, and pulled the brush hook from his back. Its forty centimetre blade gleams in the faint moonlight, sturdy companion of Jack’s years in the wilderness. Maybe Daleks will think it unimpressive, but if it can cut staves and clear dead wood, it can lop arms and damage eyestalks just as easily. He doesn’t waste time thinking about the odds of getting close enough to use it.

“Do it.”

She nods to him. “Godspeed, Captain.” He sketches a salute, and in the split second before the picture winks out Jack can see what looks oddly like people saluting him _back;_ then there is the disorientating jumble of teleportation, the jarring stop of arrival, the drop of his stomach as he _falls_ -

What the _hell_ -!

The world is a wild jumble around him, buildings and fire and fields and what looks like an enormous _tree_ he can’t make sense of with the rest of it - and then something hits him and the tree is swallowing him down and Jack thinks, not for the first time, _there may be a first time for everything but no one else has to do them all_.

His skis stick in its throat. 

“Serves you right!” he yells, after the stars fade from his vision from slamming into the wall. He’s probably lucky he didn’t skewer himself on his brush hook, he’d have been well stuck then. There’s no room to swing it so after a moment’s hesitation he jams it into the wall and hopes this tree is as slow to react to such things as most trees he knows. Levering himself up, he fumbles at the ties on his skis, and then he’s falling again, sliding as the slope levels out, flailing in a graceful arc and then a wall takes him down again.

Jack blinks, dazed. Can’t mistake the feel of reviving, and that wasn’t it, but he almost certainly lost some time to unconsciousness. All his limbs accounted for, head moves fine if a bit dizzily, vision - hard to tell. He blinks again, but it is still very dark. He groans.

“Hush, Captain,” says the Doctor, “you’ll disturb the resonance.” A hand gropes down Jack’s arm, finds his hand, and Jack grabs back in crushing relief.

"You're alright," he whispers, acknowledging to himself for the first time the fear that he would find the Doctor _not_ so. 

The Doctor hesitates. "For a certain value of alright, yes," he hedges, and Jack's stomach drops in a less definable direction. For him to admit to it - "Footloose and fancy free, don't they say, dear Captain? Now, shush."

 _Dear Captain?_ Jack stamps the fear down, down, _down_ , and shushes, listening to the buzz of the sonic screwdriver in the silence. He is just getting around to wondering what the Doctor is doing when there is an immense _cre-ea-ak_ and a clatter and a growing commotion and then a sensation that calls terror from deep memory cleaves the air not half a metre above his head, accompanied by a solid _thunk_. Jack takes an experimental breath as the vibrato of the world's most unexpected javelin fills his ears. Not skewered.

His skis crash haphazardly down onto him in four pieces as well, which is not nearly as big a problem. "Fuck," Jack says, feeling it wholly inadequate.

"What," the Doctor breathes, not skewered either, "was that?"

"My brush hook. Turns out -" Jack swallows convulsively. "Turns out to be a liability, when swallowed by a tree."

"I'll keep that in mind," the Doctor says faintly.

“What’s the plan?” Jack asks, since they’re talking anyway.

“Erm,” says the Doctor.

“You were doing something,” Jack points out, finally sitting up. Shrugging out of his pack, he opens it looking for a lamp and finds most of his phosphor lights have been shaken up so badly they are already gleaming bright. “Well, so much for conserving. Get a good look at our predicament, at least.”

“I’d really rather not -” the Doctor objects, which seems unlikely until Jack gets a good look at him and realises he also would have rathered not: face a blood-streaked, swollen caricature in the bright green light, coat gone, blood-darkened shirt torn to shreds with the white of bone showing through, prosthetic leg clearly missing, other leg...

“Is that a tourniquet?”

The Doctor scowls fiercely. “Well it’s certainly _meant_ to be, what does it look like, a garter?”

“Little low for a garter. Wouldn’t be any fun. So, when you said _footloose_ , earlier…” Jack laughs so he doesn’t scream. “And you think my jokes are bad.”

“I didn’t exactly come willingly, Captain.” He looks away and takes a breath as if to say something else, but instead he pauses, peering thoughtfully at the spill of phosphor lights in Jack’s hands. “Those are rather flammable, you know. Explosive, even.”

“They’re perfectly safe, or I wouldn’t carry them around. You’d have to light them all up and then break them open and dump them into a metal pot or something to make an explosive. And I don’t have one.”

Turning his battered face up to Jack’s, the Doctor says, “You’ve got a brush hook.”

After a long moment, Jack nods. It’s not a _good_ idea, but he doesn’t have a better one. With any luck, the tree is alive enough that a raging inferno in its belly will distract it from recapturing the Doctor. It is a very rare day indeed the Doctor asks him to blow himself up - or burn himself alive, whichever it is happens - not that he intends to refuse. But he does wonder what dire state he will find the town in, when he makes it back, and how the Doctor came to be in the condition he is in. Methodically he begins shaking the unlit phosphor lights as the Doctor searches his few remaining pockets for metal. “That’s part two sorted, then. How about part one?”

“That’s what I was doing,” the Doctor says, moving gingerly to indicate the tunnel - the throat - through which Jack entered. “It’s living - it moves purposefully. It responds to signals of some sort. So I thought, if it can swallow things, if it can constrict in a wave like that, it ought to be able to constrict in a more useful way and form steps.”

“I thought the sonic didn’t work on wood.”

“It doesn’t work on dead wood. I may have been thinking about it all wrong, Jack, I've never had reason to -” Obviously excited by the new idea, he cuts himself off before he goes too far down a tangent. “But go see. I expect that’s what… dislodged your gear.” _Nearly got them killed again_ , he means.

Hauling himself to his feet, Jack finds the chamber - stomach, gizzard, or simply oubliette - is not quite tall enough to stand in, the throat even smaller. Light held before him, he looks cautiously up it and discovers what had been a smooth slide on his way down is now creased with ropy, root-like strictures. Jack tosses the light ahead as far as he can, ventures in a few more steps; it all looks the same.

A pained sound from the Doctor has Jack backing out. He turns to see the injured Time Lord hanging from the haft of Jack’s brush hook to dislodge it from the wall. It pulls free just as Jack says, “Here, let me -” and reaches for it, and the Doctor falls, scattering the phosphor lights he had swept into a pile whilst Jack’s back was turned. “You were going to set it off,” Jack realises, shock turning quickly to horror. It wasn’t _Jack_ he was thinking of blowing up -! “You were going to set it off and then tell me to run!”

“Go, Captain,” the Doctor orders, brow deeply creased, eyes stark in face gone waxy and pale with the pain he can no longer hide in stillness. “I’ve had enough of all this.”

Jack’s jaw drops. “You’ve lost your mind. You won't fake your death, but you'll blow yourself up for real to save _me_ a death?"

"You are worth saving, Jack!" For a moment something flares up in those lost eyes and he looks properly spirited again, but it dies out when Jack flares up to match.

"Well I’m not going! Will you kill us together?”

“There’s no time for this idiocy, Captain, it’s killing my people out there, destroying my town. Go!” he orders again; again, Jack does not. Instead he steps forward, circling toward the explosive ingredients, and the Doctor flinches back, away.

“ _You_ go.”

“Stubborn bloody simple-minded ape, I can’t! I can barely move, I can’t stand, I certainly can’t walk!”

Nearly incandescent with rage that the Doctor should _give up_ while there is breath in his body, Jack leans forward until their faces almost touch and growls, “Then swallow your pride, Time Lord, and _crawl!_ ”

Turning his face away as if Jack truly is too bright to look at, the Doctor sobs in pain and fear and helpless fury of his own. “I can’t, Jack, just go, it’s got to end sometime.”

“Not today,” Jack denies. “I won’t be party to your suicide.” Reaching deep, he sets his own fire free, blazing and unfocused and wild, everything he has learned through painful experience about protecting the Doctor from himself thrown aside. Fingers scrabbling at the rough floor, the Doctor pushes himself away involuntarily from the monster only he can see, eyes wide in terror of the power that can make him a god again in the instant of his obliteration. “Fear me, Doctor! Fear _me_ , more than death, more than life, more than anything in yourself - fear me, and run! Run away, Doctor!” he roars, voice echoing up the tunnel, the Doctor’s sobs and labored breaths echoing back down. “Run away, and _live!_ ”

Jack piles up the phosphor lamps the Doctor knocked over, and then he waits, trying to hold back the inferno he has called; but he daren’t wait too long or the thing will simply catch the Doctor and throw him back in. As soon as he hears a _creeaak_ of movement from the tree, after what seems like a plausible amount of time for the Doctor’s climb, he raises the brush hook, closes his eyes tight, and breaks them all. Clothing aflame, face and hands blistering from the initial explosion, quickly weakening as his life burns itself away, he gathers his knife and pitons along with the wrench and wires and spoon the Doctor had produced from his pockets and tosses them in the luminous puddle with the brush hook. The wrench comes flying right back into his cheekbone, but the phosphor comes with it, so the reaction will keep going. He has that satisfaction, at least, beneath the screams there’s no point holding back.

-+-+-

They find him by his screaming after he revives, so that’s just as well, Jack supposes. Later, when he is supposing things. Regrowing an exploded, burnt to ashes body is just as bad as the exploding, but he could do without the pity that colours the wary, respectful looks sent his way by the others in the clinic.

The Doctor is in a coma.

The Doctor is still terrified of him, _in a coma_.

It breaks Jack’s heart to see the Doctor flinching away from him, and the movement is bad for a healing ribcage; so, reluctantly, Jack leaves him to easier watchers and goes to see where he can help. Although the clinic escaped unharmed, Jack has hardly to step outside to begin to see the scope of the tragedy. Relic of a thousand other disaster responses, a list starts up in his mind; counting, comparing, ticking off each living person he sees against the population he last knew. The tower stands in dramatic rebuke to the swathe of destruction stretching from it straight and wide toward the edge of town; no deviations, no excursions, no mercy. Nothing left in its wake. More deaths than injuries this time, Jack suspects.

"When?" Jack asks, pulling someone to a stop - Hap, one of the carters, leading his exhausted team and cart. "When did it happen?"

He looks at Jack with hollow eyes, tugs at his cap. "Captain. About midmorning. Bad time for it, if there's such a thing as a good time. We're still digging people out - can you help?" He doesn't say whether they are digging them out alive anymore; Jack guesses mostly not. A name on his list is beginning to burn with an insistent heat as he looks around, because he _knows_ where Mareen would be. She would be here beside him, digging if she could; but failing that, she would be beside the Doctor. Jack had left him in her care, after all, even if it had never been an official charge. If he had seen her die, watched another person make that sacrifice in his name, perhaps it is no wonder he had fought like a demon and then tried to blow himself up.

"Have you found Mareen?" Jack asks, wishing he didn’t already know that _is she alright?_ would be the wrong question. Hap shakes his head. So Jack digs near the tower, where the Doctor must have been taken, methodically shifting rubble in ever widening arcs. When he finds the sweep of skirt, the end of the wide woven belt she always wore sideways to keep the tails from her work, he pauses for a moment. She had been no more than sixty, Jack thinks; too young, all of them too young. He closes his eyes and lets the tears come, and then he keeps digging.

When he has carried her to the others, when he has made certain no more lie nearby, he walks away, follows the trail of torn ground leading north to flank the forest until he nears an area of light where none normally is. A few people call subdued greetings to him but Jack just stares, distracted temporarily from his grief; walks a little way to the side to see if that changes his impression of the enormous… creature. Not a tree, then, or not exactly. Immense roots like tentacles - or perhaps the other way around - spilling out over the fields, a burnt and blown out hole high above, right where the -

Right where the eye should be. 

“Where’s Barney when you need him?” Jack says in baffled fascination. This sort of thing needs a storyteller to make sense of it. How long must it have been growing, out there in the wilderness -? “It’s a _wooden Dalek_.”

-+-+-+-

 


	40. Of belonging and belonging to

"Jack!" the Doctor cries when he wakes, unerringly fixing on the far corner of the room where Jack sits reading with an immediate concern that smoothes a healing hand over every little laceration of Jack's heart that his unconscious flinches have inflicted. Voice gone plaintive, he asks, "Why are you way over there?"

Laying aside the book with no bother to mark it, Jack steps forward. "Because -"

The Doctor jerks violently away, eyes gone round as saucers, and the nascent smile dies on Jack's lips. "Oh," the Doctor says, quietly.

"Yeah," Jack sighs. He backs away a step. "You've been doing that. I don't blame you," he adds hastily. "I wasn't gentle."

"You make it sound like some kind of assault," the Doctor says, with a credible attempt at a dismissive smile.

"Wasn’t it?"

Smile slowly congealing, the Doctor stares at Jack unblinking; finally he looks away. "It's telling, I suppose, that I have to think about it," he says lightly. "Do I still have a foot?"

That's that topic closed, then.

"Yes," Jack reassures him. "Although it's a bit worse for wear. You won't be walking any time soon. Ribs too, all back where they belong. I…" The injuries Jack had forced him to flee with would probably have been fatal to a human; Jack has already spent days tormenting himself with _could-have-beens_ and _should-have-dones_. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm sorry I - I didn’t realise. It was touch and go when they got you back here. I thought… you’d glow.”

Plucking nervously at the blanket, the Doctor shakes his head. "It's possible to be… too badly injured, to regenerate."

"I'm sorry," Jack says again, feeling as though an empty pit has opened in his chest. "I was gone when you needed me again."

The Doctor sighs. "On that matter, at least, I may set your mind at ease. That was the fourth attack. I refused Tasha's offer to recall you sooner."

“ _Why?_ ” Unable to keep the hurt out of his voice, Jack turns away instead, wraps his arms around himself although they ache to hold his lover, so nearly lost. “I could have - Doctor, better me than any of them! Better me than _Mareen!_ ”

He must have thought it, trapped in the belly of a tree - he must know it for truth - but he can never admit it. Doing so would mean ordering Jack to die for him again. “I tried to send her away,” he says instead, quiet and pained. “Jack, I tried… she told me if there’s one fight a carpenter can’t run from, it must be with a tree. Do we have any carpenters _left?_ ”

“One,” Jack says unhappily. He had thought it bad luck, but now is not so sure. He can imagine her there, fierce and terrified; armed with _what_ , he can’t guess, because surely it would never have been her beloved tools. “Three of the apprentices. And me. Doctor, she never took orders from you. _I_ do. Why didn’t you call _me_ back?”

He sighs. “I’m the one who sent you away. What right have I to order you back?”

Turning around again to consider his errant Time Lord, Jack frowns thoughtfully. Tasha Lem hadn’t hesitated to order him back once the Doctor was misplaced. Jack himself would never consider giving either of them orders except in the arena of proper care and feeding of the Doctor, where he admits no greater expert. The Doctor is frowning at him now, and Jack realises he is smiling. "I think the chain of command around here is a bit confused," he says, and after a moment the Doctor's face softens.

"Perhaps so. I'm sorry I didn't.” It’s the closest he will come to agreeing with Jack’s assessment. Holding out an unsteady hand, the Doctor says, “It will take time, but… remind me, please, Jack."

With immense care, Jack moves nearer, one step, two, three; tamps the fire down tight, tight, muffled and hid behind every wall he can raise; stretches his hand out to support the Doctor's trembling one. He would give nearly anything to take it all back and make it better, catch the Doctor up safe in his arms as he has so many times - but not the Doctor's life. He can't regret it.

Hand resting light and flighty as a frostfinch in Jack's, the Doctor closes his eyes as his breath escapes in a sudden sigh. "Yes," he whispers. "My Jack." And then his hand flutters away and Jack steps back, to relieve the anxious hammering of his hearts.

A day later he comes home; Jack sleeps on the sofa, and learns not to come too close whilst the Doctor sleeps. If he's lucky, the Doctor wakes terrified, but more often he slips into nightmares Jack can't wake him from. After a day of that, Jack simply stays away. During his waking hours, they forget on a regular basis; the Doctor's yearning looks draw Jack across the room like a charmed fishing rod, only to run aground on the terror of his fire looming too close. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Doctor loses patience with the situation first.

"Come here," he orders, pointing next to him. He sits propped up in bed as he has much of the last few days, breaking the tedium with increasingly ridiculous demands and excursions around the house in the centuries-old wheelchair he had Jack dig out of storage from the last time he was substantially mobility impaired. Jack hesitates; much as he would like to obey, it opens the wound a little further every time he sees that fear. "Come _here_ , Captain," the Doctor insists, and, well - who is he to argue?

When the Doctor tenses, eyes locked on him, Jack drops to his knees and closes the distance like that, petitioner and lover, no more the devouring conflagration. “I’m here,” he promises, and the Doctor’s fingers shake as he reaches for Jack, strokes his cheek with a painful desperation. As if it were not enough to be made so afraid, Jack had to subvert the most secure thing the lonely Time Lord knew to do it. He could hardly have been more cruel if he'd tried. Very gently, Jack raises his own hand to cover the Doctor's; he turns his head to press a kiss to the Doctor's palm and could weep at the conflicted yearning in his eyes. 

"Come here," he whispers again, tugging gently; but when Jack stands he cringes away.

Jack steps back and the Doctor pounds the blankets with his fists, an inarticulate scream of frustration escaping his clenched teeth. Dropping back to his knees beside the bed, Jack catches his hand again. "I'd kneel here forever, you know I would."

"I know nothing of the sort."

With a wry smile, Jack says, "I'm not promising to enjoy every moment of it. But I came here for you, and I stay for you, and I’m glad you’re alive, and I love you. I always will.”

A breath could break him, right now. “Jack -”

Jack shakes his head, doesn’t let go the Doctor’s hand. “It’s not a promise. It’s a Fact. The secrets you’re keeping can’t change it.”

"Maybe so," the Doctor concedes finally, softly; as though perhaps he actually agrees, instead of only seeking to end the conversation. "I'm sorry, Jack."

Sighing in half-sincere despair, Jack complains, "Always the apologies with you. Tell me something you're _not_ sorry for." Face going charmingly pink, the Doctor looks away. Jack grins. "Well _that_ looks promising. Tell me?"

"It's entirely inappropriate to the situation -"

"As if that's ever stopped me?"

"That's the trouble, isn't it?" But he peeks back at Jack. "Only it occurred to me that I'm rarely sorry when you're on your knees," he mumbles, to Jack's delight.

“Do some of my best work on my knees,” he agrees. Coaxing the Doctor’s hand open, he kisses the tip of each half curled finger, nuzzles into the centre; he kisses the palm when he feels the Doctor’s thumb stroke his cheek. “Go on. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Those earnest eyes, not dangerous when all Jack wants is to be seen, watch gravely as his cool fingertips explore Jack’s face, trace around his ear. “You were terrifying.”

“I was terrified.” By the Doctor’s hopelessness more than anything; but thankfully that mood seems to have softened into a more resigned sadness. Jack doesn’t try to hide the shiver of pleasure when the fingers slide up into his hair and tug lightly. Lips twitching up in answer, the Doctor tightens his grip and Jack lets himself fall away to that place of unburdened existence, of simple centered _being_ , of belonging and belonging to. “I’m not sorry,” he admits distantly. “I never want to be - that. I will. But I don't want to. This is what I want.” 

"I had wondered," he thinks he hears the Doctor whisper, "what made you so strong."

 _You_ , Jack doesn’t say, thoughts rising past him like bubbles, quick, discrete. _You made me strong_. Eyelids closed by unbearable weight, breaths deep and heavy, Jack's head sinks to the blue bedspread under his lover's firm grip and all he knows, everything he is, is deep, deep stillness. The Doctor holds him there, still and steady and safe together, for a very long time.

His knees ache something fierce, after; so next time he brings a pillow.

-+-+-

“The Prosthetist of Christmas,” Jack suggests, holding up two extra feet. The Doctor ignores him. “The Jolly Old Legmaker.” With a snort, the Doctor throws a scrap of wood at him. “Ow! Strike _jolly_.” Rubbing his chest, Jack takes a step back; then a new, worse idea strikes, if his mischievous grin is anything to go by. The Doctor rolls his eyes and waits, definitely not smiling. “All I want for Christmas is a brand new leg,” Jack sings. “A brand new leg, I need a brand new leg -”

“Look, if you want to help -”

“Why would I want to do that? This is much more fun.” He dodges another scrap of wood and begins dancing with the extra feet. 

Sighing, the Doctor returns to the fiddly business of fitting the socket to his leg. The rest of it is easy. “I don’t know why I keep you around.”

“Oh yes, you do.” Finally allowing the smile onto his face, the Doctor doesn’t look up. “I saw that,” Jack calls on his way out, although he couldn't possibly have done. When a cup of tea appears at the Doctor's elbow a few minutes later he does look up, and finds Jack looking down at him with that quiet satisfaction he takes in serving, that neither expects nor desires acknowledgement beyond the Doctor’s comfort. "Now I can help."

It's not unusual that Jack should bring him tea; has, at times, been something the Doctor took for granted. Tea appears, at the right time, made just as he likes. No jammy dodgers to decorate the saucer with, of course. Not here. He swallows the brief flash of regret reflexively, barely noticed, like the faint note of rot everyone learns to ignore in the smell of the sea. Instead of handing Jack something to help with, the Doctor smiles and sets down his file. "Thank you," he says, and then whilst Jack blinks at him in surprise the Doctor reaches up, twists his fingers into the front of his jumper, and pulls him down into a very satisfying kiss. All the better for Jack's wide eyes and flailing arms and unintelligible comments that quickly devolve to appreciative moans. One of his hands lands on the back of the Doctor's chair; the other settles, rough and warm, along his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek. When Jack pulls away, it doesn't.

"What was that for?" Jack murmurs, bemused smile turning up his lips.

Willfully misinterpreting, the Doctor says lightly, “The tea.” He turns back to his work, and it is entirely someone else’s fault if that lands his lips in the centre of Jack’s palm.

“Nonono, not today,” Jack says, preventing him from escaping any further. He hitches a hip onto the table, nudging aside the tools and the tea. “Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours.”

Giving in to the gentle pressure urging his head up, the Doctor smiles at his lover; Jack’s smile goes meltingly tender in response, lighting his face. “I take you too much for granted.”

Jack chuckles. “I haven’t given you much cause to think otherwise. All this dropping from the sky when you're in trouble.”

“I did miss you. I don’t think I even…” Too busy just at first, and then he was convalescing, and then the deaths, the cleanup, the town, the new leg - Barnable was always fussing that he took Jack for granted. “Welcome back, Jack.”

“I always come back,” he points out, fingertips massaging gently behind the Doctor’s ear. “I know that look. You’re thinking about Barney.” Betrayed by his own face, the Doctor scowls; Jack laughs at him. “Think about him. Remember him. The alternative is forgetting, Doctor, and it’s bad enough time will take the memories eventually. No need to help it along.”

Considering Jack’s strained relationship with memory and time, it’s no surprise he should have an opinion on the matter. “Not my usual M.O.,” the Doctor mutters; but then again neither is _staying_. Perhaps memory is appropriate, here at the end. And then there will be only Jack left to remember, haunted by a persistent ghost; and then there will be only Jack.

Insides gone abruptly to queasiness, the Doctor swallows hard. Jack is waving his free hand around, amused. “This whole operation is pretty far from your usual M.O., if you ask me. I mean, alright, bigger on the inside and completely full of junk, but -”

Here and now, as Jack so likes to say. “I don’t think I did ask you! You can’t go comparing this - this pile of rocks to _my TARDIS_ , Captain, why, if she heard you -” Indignant, the Doctor tugs on Jack’s jumper again, but instead of anything the Doctor expected Jack simply swings a leg over his lap and settles in, elbows coming to rest on his shoulders. “Erm. Hello.”

Jack grins at him, a bare handspan between their noses. “Hello. You looked lonely.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Always hard to tell, with you.”

“I can’t drink my tea with you there.”

“You weren’t drinking it anyway.”

Pausing, the Doctor regards his Captain with mild consternation. Tea _doesn't_ just appear, of course, and the least he can do is be seen to accept Jack's efforts on his behalf. “I would, though.”

“I know,” Jack says with a strange kind of yearning. Maybe it’s just because the Doctor was thinking about the future but something about his face looks immensely, achingly lonely, and the Doctor remembers the stories he used to tell about the loneliest man he knows.

Closing his eyes, the Doctor leans forward to lay his forehead against the smooth warmth of Jack’s cheek, slides his palms slow and sure up hard thighs, trim hips so well fitted to his hands, the supple muscles of his back, all bent in service of the eternal flame inside. Jack sways forward in response, fingers tangling in the Doctor’s hair. As he is pressed back against the chair, as Jack tilts his face up with surpassing care, the Doctor says, “Welcome _home_ , Jack.”

-+-+-+-

 


	41. Lightbearer

It is difficult, when Jack stands before the group of older children, not to think of Barnable; his enthusiasm, his cheerful irreverence, the shine of his straw-gold hair when his hat inevitably came flying off. He doesn’t age, in Jack’s memory, he never aged, but he never looks out of place anywhere Jack remembers him, either. Not here among children, nor surrounded by children himself, telling stories, nor writing stories to be told by others, as he seemed to spend more time doing near the end. Memory is a funny thing. Jack doesn't try to banish him, but he does try to address the children actually present.

"A long time ago," he says, because he supposes it was, "we had a system of tripwires set up around the town."

"Isn't it awfully inconvenient?" asks Grame, who at fourteen is already well known to Jack for, most recently, his attempt at making bottle rockets. Jack had had a lot to say about proper respect for potentially explosive projectiles. "Tripping over things every time you go out to the forest?"

Jack gives him a toothy grin. "If you think you can lay a tripwire that _I_ won't notice, go ahead and try. But," he holds up a hand before they can dissipate into plotting mode. "The ones I want aren't for tripping people, they're for tripping alarms. Bit different. The Doctor may have a few more ideas."

"Grandma says there were giant slingshots," says a girl in the back whom Jack has never heard speak. A child next to her who looks so similar they must be sibling or cousin nods along.

"There were," Jack agrees, with an approving smile for her bravery. Both children smile back and Jack's heart skips a beat to see Barnable reflected in duplicate there for a moment. _You look like someone I used to know_ , he doesn't say. They are much too young to have ever met him. "We never used them," he says instead. "Or not against enemies. They were used against _me_ quite a bit." After the obligatory chorus of snickers, he shrugs and grins. “We can do those too, if you want. This isn't mandatory; I know some of you are already apprenticed and don't have the time." Jack nods at a few of the oldest children, who look relieved. He had simply appropriated the entire school class before they dispersed for the day. "Defence is my job. But if you'd like to help, this is how you can."

Grudgingly, the Doctor had agreed with Jack again on this. Some level of preparedness is essential and it has been too many generations since attacks were realities rather than stories. Militarising the town is very much a last resort, of course; the Doctor stayed to preserve a people and a way of life nearly as much as to protect his own people. But now they are all his own people, and children imprinted on the Doctor are bound to be adventurous idiots. Best to give them something to do.

He regretted it last time, too, Jack remembers belatedly, the morning he tumbles down the tower stairs, felled by a tripwire stretched across the doorway. The dressing down he gives Grame afterwards, unable to dismiss the image of the Doctor in his place and landing headfirst on unforgiving stone, is, perhaps, worse than he deserves; but Jack isn’t sorry. Not very.

“I’m not fragile,” the Doctor says, catching him up as he leaves the school.

“Seen you in a coma too many times,” Jack says shortly, head down.

The Doctor grabs Jack’s arm to stop him. “You can’t go all to pieces every time I get hurt, Jack. And certainly not every time you _imagine_ me getting hurt. I’m here to protect this world, not hide away.”

 _I can if I want to_ , Jack wants to say, or something similarly childish; but the remainder of that conversation is easy enough to predict, and he doesn’t want it. Instead he takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, meets the Time Lord's piercing eyes. It's a damned roller coaster, something new always happening to stoke his fear just when life starts to feel a little safe. On the other hand, with so much practice, setting aside the residual panic gets a little easier every time. “And I’m here to protect you.”

“You can’t keep me safe, Jack.” It’s the same argument they’ve been having for a millenium, but suddenly it takes on extra weight, here where it must be _true_. Of course it's true in the absolute sense, Jack will lose everyone eventually, but -

Hands fisted at his sides, Jack says bitterly, "It's not like I ever _forget_ , Doctor, I don't need the constant reminders, I'm not going around telling myself that if I just _try_ hard enough -" He swallows harshly, looks away from the startled regret in those eyes - those beguiling, bedeviling eyes, as mortal as any other creature be they ever so long lived. "Now is all we've got. It always is. Let me try anyway."

There is a pause but Jack doesn't look back at him. If he does, and if the Doctor chooses to continue invoking all his _regret_ and _disappointment_ and _compassion_ , Jack has done this often enough to know that he will argue himself around to where the Doctor wants him, and then apologise for the inconvenience. He won't even notice whilst he's doing it. The only way he has found to avoid it is to say very few words, and then shut up and wait; it makes the Doctor think through both sides of the argument, and sometimes change his mind.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says finally. Soberly, and sincerely. "I don't mean to make you… I'm sorry. Yes, of course you should keep trying. We should." There is the crunch of snow and the plume of his breath curls around Jack's face as he steps closer tentatively; he touches Jack's cheek, warm in the cold air. Still avoiding his eyes, Jack kisses him roughly in promise of later and strides away, head down, into the forest for the day.

-+-+-

It is cruel of him, most heartlessly cruel, to keep requiring Jack to face the fact that he will die eventually when he refuses to tell Jack why it matters; he sees that now. When he himself refuses to face the fact that he will die _here_ , and _soon_. Jack can’t forget; he doesn’t need to remember at every moment.

It’s easier, anyway, to step away. To let go of past, and future, and anchor himself deeply in the eternal _now_ of Jack’s fixed point, let himself be swept along. Now that Jack is once again reaching out of the tower, building things, building lives, building community here under the resumed threat from above, the Doctor finds he can rest at the centre, held in trust. The timeless quality of his third century here creeps back in as he enters his fifth, infinitely preferable for being so much less alone. His TARDIS, his Captain, both returned to him.

The fire is steady and warm, and he basks in the light and the heat of it, and remembers the stars.

For a little while, the tantalising possibility of finally convincing his sonic screwdriver to work on wood provides him a small but steady source of daily amusement. Under the townspeople's quizzical gazes he goes about the town, settling himself in a new place each afternoon, buzzing away at the greenery. The quick-growing tendrils of climbing plants seem the most amenable to his interference; perhaps predictably, it's not long before his pastime gets him banned from the hothouses entirely. Jack is already home when he gets back, which makes it hard to work up a good sulk, but he drops grumpily into the chair by the fire and gives it a try anyway.

"Hey, who pissed in your porridge?" Jack calls cheerfully from the kitchen, summarily dispensing with the oncoming sulk.

Laughing, the Doctor laments, "You have the worst turns of phrase, Captain."

"You mispronounced _best_."

"I'll give you _interesting_ , how about that. My next offer is _disgusting_ ," he adds, when Jack starts to object.

A dark-haired head appears around the corner, beaming smile front and centre. "I'll take all of the above. What's got up your nose, then?"

Lips twitching up despite his brows drawing in, the Doctor considers his irrepressible lover. "Apparently I've been _bothering the crops_ , and I'm not to do so anymore." He had tried to explain it was important research, but to no avail. "No sense of scientific inquiry."

The next day, Jack brings him a potted apple tree seedling and the argument that if he wants the sonic to work on wood, he ought to use wood and not legumes, which the Doctor grudgingly admits has merit. The endeavour, it turns out, does not; he might have a future in topiaries, if he had the patience, but natural wood is just too slow to be useful on the timescales he usually works on. Then again, someone who has lived in the same place for nearly four hundred years may have little room to complain about things happening slowly. For a moment the Doctor's mind wanders forward and forward, to apple trees grown in the fullness of time, to an empty orchard slowly dying by the empty tower where he will live out his days on this dark little world, to twisted skeletons left abandoned at the end.

He asks Jack to take the little tree away. It doesn't work on wood, that's all.

“These trees don’t grow,” Jack notices one day as he helps the Doctor check all the lights in the square, fixing or replacing parts as necessary. Up a ladder - or a pole, or a tree, or a fence, or anything else that ever looked likely to him - isn’t so natural a position for the Time Lord as it once had been, although that doesn’t actually stop him if the fancy strikes. But Jack can do the up-again-down-again bits, if he’s about. “They’re just… perfect little Christmas trees, dressed in bells and Christmas lights, twinkling in the snow in Christmas town. No one even knows why anymore. Why don’t they grow?”

“Dormant, aren’t they?” the Doctor says, around the wires in his mouth. He strips the ends and patches the brittle, frayed section at the base of the lamp. “Waiting for a spring that won’t come. Better question, why don’t they die? They’re plain old Earth-stock conifers, I’m surprised they get enough light to survive at all.”

“Surprised you do,” Jack mutters. He screws the cover back on and clambers down the ladder. “I tried explaining solar power to Barney once. He laughed at me.”

The Doctor laughs as well, but not at all _at_ him. “Yes, I gave up trying to explain that particular idea centuries ago. You won’t get much traction with constellations, either. Or rainbows.” Or blue skies, one of Jack’s favorite things. Walking barefoot, or wanting to. Morning dew; an evening breeze. _Ice cream on a summer’s day_ is a phrase rendered incomprehensible by the experiential divide. “It’s been so long, Jack, sometimes I don’t think I remember them either.”

Some months later, Jack draws him away from his worktable at the end of the day with a smile. “Got a surprise for you,” he says, steering the Doctor to the bedroom. “Close your eyes.” Without the first idea of what Jack may have devised, the Doctor complies; more and more he finds himself simply wanting to make Jack happy. Warm arms encircle his waist and the comforting solidity of his Captain presses against his back, cheek to his ear. “Look.”

At first the Doctor isn’t sure what he is looking at. The room is oddly lit by a row of lamps on the mantle, but these lamps don’t burn with the usual yellow-white flame; instead the brilliant red of strontium, the orange and yellow of calcium and sodium, the greens and blues of copper compounds, even a flame shading into violet. The Doctor blinks, swallows a sudden tightness in his throat. “You - you made me a rainbow. Jack -”

“Took a while to get it right.” Jack’s voice vibrates through him although he speaks quietly for his closeness to the Doctor’s ear. “And a surprising number of people. I asked Hedda - she makes the colors for the glassmakers in Wrenshall - which it turns out works very differently, so then I went to the miners and we needed a chandler and a distiller and - it kind of ballooned.” He laughs, mildly chagrined. “I went in and said, _I want to make the Doctor a rainbow_ , and she informed me very politely that she hadn’t the faintest idea what that was but would be happy to help if I thought she might be useful. She thought it was some kind of weapon, I think, like a crossbow.”

Laughing helplessly, the Doctor leans back against his light in the darkness. “It’s beautiful, Jack, thank you.”

“It’s not really a rainbow,” Jack admits, nuzzling into his neck, “but it’s nice enough.” It’s not a rainbow at all, but most days, the Doctor doesn’t mind. Watching the colored shadows shifting over Jack’s skin is a better use than waking long-ago memory, bright-tinted shivers as the Doctor traces out _lifespring_ and _lightbearer_ and _beloved_ with lips and teeth and silent tongue.

"I found that poem," Jack says another night, when the ice is too thick to even go out and they have spent the day cocooned in bed. "The one you recited for Barney. How do you have books from old Earth here, anyway?"

Loathe to give up the heat he is basking in, the Doctor turns his head away from Jack's chest just enough to mumble intelligibly, "Fetched from the TARDIS, before she went to sleep."

"Ah. I wondered if Tasha hadn't procured them somehow."

"She used to get me marshmallows," he says sadly. "It wasn't so bad." Jack is silent, in a very pointed way. After a long moment the Doctor whispers, "That was a lie," and hides his face again.

Strong arms surround him tight and safe, and Jack muses, "'Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end, Watching the pier as the ship sails away…'" Held motionless, eternity’s heartbeat a dull roar under his ear, the Doctor does not run away. All he has left to hope for is here already.

-+-+-

Centuries come and centuries go with little fanfare in a life spanning millennia in lace. The empty spaces eat the years, and all that matters is that Jack goes on, that the thread goes on unbroken. Whether Jack himself remains unbroken is a separate question; he's not, of course. Just happens to know someone quite skilled at putting him back together. That's four times now, or maybe five. Or six? More than that. Feels like pulling a fishing line out of the ice, each fish-laden hook appearing singular from the dark water, unseen weight still on the line.

What is memory, to a man who walks with time? _Now_ is the thing, and _here_ is the place, here with the Doctor in the longest now they have ever had, or probably ever will.

Jack's time on Trenzalore has stretched to more than a century; he knows because the townsfolk had interrupted his investigation of what Dalek wood is good for to ask if he might like a party for the anniversary. The Doctor hadn't wanted to scuttle the idea entirely in secret, apparently, although he had known better than to keep Jack apprised of the passing years. He does learn. Jack had allowed the party, danced as the Captain ought and did his level best to be cheerful; then he took the Doctor home and did his best to make him forget his own name. They don't speak of numbers again.

Neither does the Doctor mention numbers when Jack gets himself extremely, uncharacteristically drunk a little less than four years later. Jack has forgotten which dark day Barnable died but his birthday has a gravity to it that Jack knows from experience he will not forget for a very long time, and he can do arithmetic as well as anyone. As long without him now as ever with him. It's not a meaningful arithmetic of life or love, but it is a tipping point Jack hates to reach; so he tips himself over it headfirst into alcohol-drowned oblivion. He wakes alone in the TARDIS, tucked into bed carefully, water and paracetamol waiting for him on the bedside table, not sure how he got there and not much curious in the wake of an impressive hangover. The TARDIS sings softly to him as he lays there at the intersection of past and future, and after a while Jack gathers up his threads and goes on.

Neither of them suggest leaving again. It's just one more thing lost without notice into the silence, just another thing set aside to ease each other's hearts. Jack throws himself back into the life of the town, the planning, the rebuilding, the _living;_ the Captain becomes once again a bit larger than life, just another part of the mythos of the Doctor in the tower. He stays and stays, living out a promise the Doctor won’t let him make, and years and decades and generations pass by outside whilst Jack stands at the centre with the man who stayed for Christmas.

-+-+-+-

 


	42. What's mortal danger against a good cup of tea?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dear readers, I believe you would agree that cliffhangers are not a tactic I overuse. Hold on to your hats._

“Jack? Jack!” the Doctor calls as he clatters down the stairs - which is a feat, usually he takes them at a much slower thump, but it’s rather exciting - there he is. “Jack! I’m going topside.”

Looking up from where he is sitting to pull his own boots on, Jack raises an eyebrow and says, “Oh, yes?”

Forward momentum slightly diverted, the Doctor looks him over. Obviously dressed but lacking a few layers for an outdoor excursion, Jack looks him over in return with a wall-eyed stare, then continues tying his boots. “Where are you going?”

“Topside.”

“Oh. Erm. You were listening at the stairs?” he hazards. Jack nods. So much for his exciting news. Finally the progress he has been waiting for, the successful subversion of the Dalek nanotech to the point Tasha feels it entirely safe to parade his very valuable carcass in front of potential Dalek fire, one hundred and ninety seven years since he last set foot off this planet. He would not have waited so long; Jack would probably like to wait longer. But he has got to get away, even if only for tea. “I didn’t think you’d want to come. You don’t even like Tasha.”

“Of course I’m coming.”

“It’s safe now, I don’t need _protecting_.” Jack snorts. “Well I don’t see what you think you could do if she’s wrong!”

“Take a bullet for you, at least. Dalek hits you, you don’t regenerate - isn’t that right?”

“I won’t -” He cuts himself off. _I won’t regenerate anyway_ is absolutely, completely, and in all other ways not where he wants this conversation going. “That’s true. I won’t regenerate in that case.”

“Well, then.” Jack nods as if the matter is perfectly settled, stands, and holds the Doctor’s coat for him. “Shall we?”

“You’re fussing again,” the Doctor accuses. Jack ignores him. He had thought it would be good, growing older with Jack, watching him grow into his older self. It’s not.

“Oh! Or do we have to go naked?” The coat drops a bit as Jack eyes him up and down with more roguish interest than the Doctor wants at the moment. “Just boots and coat, maybe? You’d be quite fetching -”

Irritated, the Doctor cuts him off. “She’s granted me an indulgence on the matter; I’ll see it extends to you as well. Last thing you need, more excuses to lose your trousers.” Seeing no way around it, he steps into his coat and jerks it and himself away from Jack. “Come along, then.” Jack follows him back to the roof with ill-concealed disappointment, takes up his place at the Doctor's shoulder without further comment.

Just for a few minutes, he had thought it was going to be a good day.

The oddly barren opulence of Tasha's quarters greets him as he pulls aside the curtain on the teleport bay, along with Tasha herself, sharp as blades in the dark drapery of her office. She never seems to set it aside, as if it were armour against what she cannot let out; of course what she does on her own time he cannot know. But maybe he will again, now. "Tasha," the Doctor says happily, and reaches to gather her close. Jack makes a skittish aborted movement but does not try to get between them.

“Doctor,” Tasha greets him, allowing a kiss on her cheek before turning to Jack. “Captain. I assure you, this room, at the very least, is safe.”

Frowning, the Doctor insists, “You needn’t humour him. He gets ridiculous.” Continuing his slow prowl around the perimeter of the room, Jack does not respond save for a dark glance too quick for the Doctor to read anything from.

Tasha sighs and steps away, skirts rustling as she makes her way to a shelf at the edge of the room. “Your opinion on _safety_ is noted, Doctor.” Suspicious, the Doctor waits for the qualifier. “As a detailed manual of what not to do. You’ll have forgotten, I suppose, that I nearly killed you and your companion last time you were here?”

“You’ve been conspiring,” the Doctor accuses. “You’ve been planning this. Pair of killjoys.”

“Of course I’ve been planning this,” Tasha says dismissively. Pulling something from the shelf, she turns to Jack, who has almost made it around the room to her. “Captain.” She tosses it, and Jack’s lips quirk up appreciatively as he catches the awkward black bundle.

“Mother Superious,” he says, with a wave of his hand that looks uncomfortably like a salute; then he unwraps a long black strip and pulls something heavy and sleek from inside. As he sights down it toward the floor, the image snaps into sudden focus and the Doctor lets out an outraged squawk.

“You’ve armed him!” Tasha gives him the sort of look usually reserved for very slow pupils. “Captain, put that back,” he tries; Jack just raises a sceptical eyebrow. “No one is shooting anyone!”

“That’s the idea,” Jack agrees as he holsters the blaster and fastens the belt around his waist.

“I’m not going around under armed guard!”

“My ship, my rules,” the Mother Superious says, and the Doctor knows from experience it’s no use arguing with her when she gets like that.

He tries anyway. “My Captain!” he insists, brandishing his cane toward Jack. “You can’t go around issuing him weapons, that is not how this works. He’s not under your jurisdiction.” Tasha shakes her head, but it’s Jack who answers.

“On her ship, carrying her weapons, I am under her jurisdiction. I'm under yours, always. But, Doctor, when it comes to your safety here -" Jack steps forward until he is nearly toe-to-toe with the Doctor, forcing him to stand straight and meet his eyes. "I'm in charge."

The extent of his sphere of influence is very far from _always_ , but he had thought it at least included _now_ -! Stomach soured by the betrayal, the Doctor threatens, "I'll go without you."

"No, you won't," Jack says, and he's right, and the Doctor hates it. With a dark look at Tasha, whose fault this is, the Time Lord pushes past Jack and out the door. Knocked off balance briefly, Jack follows nonetheless, the unshakeable conflagration of him casting unseen shadows at the Doctor’s shoulder. Although there is nowhere in particular he wants to go - anywhere at all, as long as it has a bit of novelty to it - Jack's subtle shepherding suggests there are places in particular he will _not_ be going. The whole situation is infuriating. And baffling.

“Playing sheepdog for her now, are you? Running at her heels?”

“Jealous?” Having stolen the Doctor's excitement at finally escaping the endless dark, Jack’s energetic steps seem to ring with it; the Doctor has the nonsensical urge to shake him and demand he _give it back!_

“No,” he says, shocked at the ease with which he delivers the lie. Jack doesn’t seem to notice. “Not a bit,” he adds with glee, “she can have you.”

Steps faltering for a moment, Jack seems to lose some of his ebullience as he glances over, but all he says is, “Might be able to arrange something.” The Doctor finds he doesn’t want to play that game anymore. 

Instead he is made to play a game of Jack entering rooms before him, of speaking to people with a bodyguard hovering in unspecified threat just outside the conversation. But nothing at all happens to justify Jack’s jumpy hypervigilance. Eventually he begins to relax, to smile, to _chat_ , and the Doctor’s mood plummets further.

“I’m done here,” he announces, spitefully interrupting what looks to be an engaging conversation involving Jack making inroads on charming the trousers off three very willing off-duty Clerics. Setting off without waiting, he hears Jack make his farewells as gracefully as ever behind him and hurry to catch up.

“Tea time?” Jack suggests.

"You needn't feel obligated," the Doctor bites out; he regrets it when Jack just hums cheerfully.

Still insisting on entering doors first, Jack stands at attention in Tasha’s private audience room as the Doctor follows him in. “Ma’am,” he says, “the Doctor here for tea.”

She frowns at him quellingly. “That’s quite enough of the play-acting, Captain.”

Unchastened, Jack grins. “What can I say, you bring it out in me. Never met someone who dressed like you and didn’t appreciate a little kowtowing.”

“ _Jack!_ ” the Doctor objects, scandalised at this unwelcome convergence of previously separate bits of his life. “You don’t even like each other!”

“It’s not as bad as all that,” Jack says and winks at him, but the Doctor is in no mood for jokes - _especially_ of this sort. He glowers silently and Jack shakes his head. “If you’re staying here, I’m going to roam a bit more. Have fun!”

He is gone before the Doctor can object, although he isn’t sure he wants to - at least this way he doesn’t have to look at Jack, doesn’t have to see the way his eyes make an appreciative survey of each new person, doesn’t have to listen to him lavish attention on everyone but him, doesn’t have him hovering at his shoulder _protecting_ him.

No, now he has to try to avoid thinking about what Jack is doing instead.

“Doctor?” Tasha says invitingly. She opens her hand toward a small side table with a tea service waiting. “I happen to have come into possession of a small amount of genuine Earth-grown tea leaves. Apparently a few mountaintops on the planet are still suitable for growing it.”

“Really?” Interested despite himself, the Doctor seats Tasha and then himself at the table. Trenzalore has tea, and as used to it as he is it’s nothing like the proper English breakfast black of his memories. Perhaps this will be a worthwhile effort after all.

When Jack returns two hours later the look of well-shagged bliss on his face is very nearly too much for the Doctor. What little good mood he has worked up dissipates instantly. He doesn’t, _can’t_ , expect sexual exclusivity from Jack - they don’t even _do_ that for years at a go sometimes - and Jack has certainly never pretended to offer it, but before Trenzalore it was a more abstract issue. He accepts it, truly he does - he even, on occasion, _suggests_ it - but he has never fully been able to excise the drive to possess Jack and he hates it. Sometimes he hates it in a way they both love and when he stakes his claim on Jack in retaliation it brings out everything good between them, all the beauty of Jack’s immortal flame woven through their long and intertwined timelines. But some days he hates it and knows he is not enough, never enough, and he can’t forget that he is rapidly approaching the end of his relevance to his Captain. The glimpses of how easily Jack will move on to other lovers, other lives, feel like slivers of glass carefully slid into his chest, there to slowly cut him to pieces with every beat of his hearts.

Jack never strayed whilst Barnable was alive. Why was _he_ good enough -?

Disgusted to find himself sunk so low in his resentment, the Doctor stands abruptly. What Jack needs, he should have, and that’s all there is to it. The Doctor can’t provide it; well, then, he must find someone who can. Blaming Jack for his own failure is unacceptable. 

“I trust you’ve had a good time,” he says, unable to rein himself all the way back around to _congenial_. Jack’s stupid grin slides awry as he examines the Doctor’s face. “Thank you, Tash, it’s been lovely. We’ll have to do it again sometime; it gets tedious down there. Do leave that here, Jack.”

Jack looks as if he is trying to work out whether the Doctor is calling _him_ tedious, but he follows along to the teleport bays after quickly dropping his borrowed armaments to the table and snapping another salute to Tasha. “Thank you, ma’am, much obliged.”

“Captain.” She nods to him, whatever inscrutable exchange of power they had worked out between them completed. The Doctor scowls. _His_ Captain. “Doctor. Perhaps now that it seems unlikely to be fatal, you will visit more.”

With a reluctant snort of amusement, the Doctor waves vaguely in acknowledgement. “What’s mortal danger against a good cup of tea? Come along, Captain.”

-+-+-

Jack groans, not sure where he is but certain it is not the surface of Trenzalore. His head hurts badly, which may be a hangover or may be the residual effect of someone hitting him over the head really incompetently, because it wouldn’t hurt so much if he’d been out long. _There is something wrong with your life,_ Jack’s mind supplies, _when this is a normal sort of calculus._ There is also something wrong with his life when his head hurts and he can’t remember why and he is chained to the wall.

“Kinky,” he says, and tries to open his eyes. The right side of his face explodes in pain as someone backhands him with careless strength. “Fuck!”

“You will tell us about the defences of Trenzalore,” says a voice Jack can’t assign an owner to. He laughs as he spits blood, squinting against the very bright light shining in his eyes; he can’t make anything out in the darkness beyond.

“Are you new here or just stupid? _The Doctor_ is the defence of Trenzalore. Have you heard of him? The Oncoming Storm, the Beast of Trenzalore? And I suggest you run away very quickly, because he’ll want me back.”

“He will not want you back.”

“Like hell he won’t,” Jack says heatedly. “Just because I make him angry doesn’t mean he’ll let you kill me.” He will, of course, or at least he had _better_ , not charge to the rescue like an idiot -! 

“He will not want you back,” the voice repeats, “because when we intercepted your teleport, we were able to retrieve only you, and this.” A small table rolls close so Jack can see it and at first he can make no sense of the odds and ends on it: bits of wood, a screw, what seems to be a lopsided container made of brown leather. But as an armoured hand reaches for the container Jack realises there is carving on one of the wood chips - carving in a pattern he recognises, because _he carved it_ \- his mind scrabbles frantically away from completing the thought. A red-brown goo tips out of the container which looks increasingly like part of a boot, and there is the curve of a heel in another wood chip, and it seeps out onto the table like desecration, like the death of hope, and Jack can't tear his eyes away although his head is shaking in horrified denial.

The voice speaks again, echoing hollowly somewhere far away from Jack. "We are disappointed," it says, emotionless as ever. "We wanted the Doctor. We were not expecting an additional transportee. You will assist us now."

-+-+-+-

 


	43. Too much to hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hope you still have a good hold of those hats, folks._   
>    
>  _Happy winter (or summer) solstice, on Saturday! Time to celebrate the return of the light. I have to say, as much as I appreciated it before, after writing this book I'll never take daylight for granted again._

The Doctor staggers in more than the usual teleport disorientation as he arrives back on the roof of the tower, windmills his arms - his cane doesn’t catch him - his leg doesn’t _hold_ him -! “Jack!” he cries as he collapses to the floor, but Jack isn’t there to catch him.

Jack isn’t there at all.

Alone, terribly alone in the dark, the Doctor sits up and tries to make sense of his situation. The feel of Trenzalore turning beneath him is unmistakable, the stones of his tower as familiar as his TARDIS after all these centuries, the sounds of the town below him, the lights of the square - but that constant beacon he steers by is gone. His cane has snapped clean through although he never felt it do so, handle still in his hand, the rest dropped to the floor. His foot -

Baffled, the Doctor stares at the space which ought to contain his right foot, but instead contains only most of his ankle and the toe of his boot - and presumably foot - still connected by a strip of leather and laces. As if someone had simply sliced a bit of him off. Lucky it’s his right foot. He can replace it, but it will be annoying getting down the stairs.

Nevermind the foot, he’s lost an entire person. “Tasha!” he yells into the sky. “Tasha Lem, speak to me _this instant_ or I won’t be responsible for the consequences!”

Her avatar appears in the sky, if not quite that instant, very shortly afterward. “It’s a bit late to complain about the tea, Doctor.”

Too enraged to play games, the Doctor demands, “What have you done with my Captain?”

Her eyes narrow. “He should be right beside you.”

“He’s _not_. Find him, and give him back to me, or I’ll retrieve him myself.”

“I will not allow you to bring the TARDIS into this,” she says, voice gone to steel at his threat. “The moment you are seen to be an active player again is the moment this siege turns into all-out war. Will you trade so many lives for a man who can’t die?”

Jack isn’t here to stop him from doing so, is he? Constrained again by the truth field, the Doctor says, “I don’t know,” with the kind of smile that tends to make people remember important things to do very far away. “Let’s not find out. Find him. I’ll be up momentarily.”

She frowns. “I’ll teleport you -”

With a disbelieving bark of laughter, the Doctor tosses away the remains of his boot and climbs to his feet. Foot. It’s far from optimal but an ungainly hobble is probably more threatening than crawling. “Not bloody likely. The teleport system is compromised.” And more importantly, his threats lose much of their persuasive ability if he is separated from the TARDIS. “Go!”

In the seven and a half minutes it takes to get downstairs and rebuild himself adequately from spare parts, the Doctor discovers there is also something wrong with his left arm, but does not bother discovering what; it hurts terribly and he doesn’t have time for that. When he quits the tower for the TARDIS, wearing unmatched boots and wielding a old cane, there are a number of people gathered to see him off.

“Ah,” he says, taken aback. “I am coming back.”

“With the Captain,” more than one of them insist.

Oh. He tends to forget his conferences have no degree of privacy. “Yes, with the Captain. I’ll have him back safe and sound before you can say Bob's your uncle. _Do_ you say that?” The blank looks suggest the answer is _no;_ nevermind.

“Doctor, your shoulder -” someone says.

“It’ll keep.” And then he is on his way, and it’s too much to hope that they have retrieved Jack already but when the Doctor steps out into an empty room he finds he must have been hoping it anyway, because he is bitterly disappointed. Jack doesn't even feel any closer up here, which is also disappointing where it shouldn't be, considering the distances involved.

He finds Tasha in the center of the web of Tactics and Operations, taking in a constant stream of, so far, negative results. “We are doing all we can,” she informs him, interrupting his complaints before he can work up a decent head of steam. “We could not trace the teleport.”

The Doctor glares at her for a moment, then snaps his mouth closed. “Fine,” he bites out, turning to look at the screens she is watching.

“Doctor -” Tasha says, sounding startled; she cuts herself off and demands instead, “Medic! Attend the Doctor immediately.”

“I don’t need a medic, I need my Captain back.”

“You are _missing part of your shoulder,_ Doctor, and your coat is soaked in blood.” Turning to her in surprise, the Doctor catches an expression he can hardly credit on her; it looks like compassion. “Did you not notice?”

“It’s nothing,” he says, and tries to wave his left arm to demonstrate, but it has stiffened in the minutes of inactivity and the attempt steals his breath and turns his flesh-and-blood knee to water. “Fine,” he gasps, “I’m fine, it’s fine.”

The medic Tasha called for him has a soft voice and a strong back, steadying him carefully with an arm about his waist. “No, sir, it’s not fine when I can see your shoulderblade.”

“You aren’t to bleed out on the deck, Doctor,” Tasha admonishes him gently.

“Wouldn’t,” he mumbles, “capillary response -”

“Captain Harkness would have my head.”

“Overprotective.” He spits it like a curse, and feels better for it.

Tasha laughs. “That appears to describe both of you.”

“You have _no idea_ what might be happening to him -”

“No, but I know you need medical attention.”

“I’m not leaving,” the Doctor says, the closest he intends to come to agreement. After a nod from the Mother Superious the medic begins very carefully peeling his coat off then and there. He is down to his shirt in short order; another medic appears with supplies and the Doctor tries to ignore the rest of the proceedings.

"It took off most of my foot, too, but I fixed that," he says absently, once he is swathed in bandages to everyone's content. It does hurt much less. The medics, who were preparing to disappear back to whatever alcove they leapt from, stop short and gape in unattractive surprise at his feet; Tasha raises an eyebrow questioningly. "Oh, ah -" he raps knuckles above his knee, "the wooden one."

The look Tasha gives him then is completely inscrutable.

"We found him, Mother Superious, Doctor," one of a cloud of clerics at a very large screen calls; the Doctor is at his shoulder before he finishes speaking.

“Where?” he says in the startled cleric’s ear. “Show me. Or just extract him now, no need for pleasantries.”

“Yes, sir. We’re attempting to get a fix.”

The Doctor scowls. “In what way have you found him, then?”

“Data stream, sir. We have many of the ships here bugged.” He pauses, looking suddenly unsure. “It appears to be an interrogation in progress, sir, are you sure -”

The suffering in his name never ends. “ _Show me_.”

The cleric manipulates the screen and a video feed appears, in mercifully small format because even if the Doctor ought to, _needs_ to, stand witness, Jack’s torment is no entertainment for a room to gawp at. He scowls around indiscriminately until every eye is turned away, then takes up his self-appointed task. The only thing he can make out clearly is Jack himself, chained to a wall and brightly illuminated whilst shadowy figures move about the edges. He hangs limply, eyes open, shaking his head every so often, never speaking; there is no sound, but his mouth doesn't move. A chill sweeps over the Doctor as he watches Jack flinch away from whatever the current instrument of torture is, eyes wide and frightened. He knows this look, has seen it in those blue eyes too many times. Jack should be resisting, should be provoking, should be gathering information, should at the very least be screaming in defiance, _using_ the pain. Not this silent, vacant fear. Somehow, they have already broken his Captain.

The Doctor's hand reaches without his will toward the screen as if to pluck Jack from it. "Get him out of there," he insists, voice spilling out of him with a momentum of its own. "Get him out of there _now_." Urgent fire lit inside and creeping up his spine, he turns to Tasha. "Or I will!"

"No," she says. Without a wasted breath, the Doctor spins and strides toward the door. "Doctor, you must not!" Two Clerics step into his way to block the door. Their obvious terror would be gratifying in many other circumstances, but right now it's worthless to him: they are still in his way. They won't meet his eyes, instead staring desperately at the Mother Superious.

The Doctor turns slowly to stare at her as well. "Tasha Lem," he says, heavy and deliberate. "Mother Superious, Head of the Church and Commander of the Papal Mainframe, guardian of Trenzalore. No force in this universe ever has or ever will keep me from doing my utmost to protect the people I love. I have held planets hostage and destroyed fleets of thousands. I have burned stars to dust. I have rewritten time. _All_ of this," he waves his arm in a wide arc, raises his voice to speak over her, "exists at my will! And there is _nothing I will not do_ to get my Captain out of there _now_. If you can't get a transmat lock, destroy the ship."

In a silence so heavy time seems to bend around it, the Mother Superious stares at him, straight and severe. Just as the Doctor is about to turn away, she takes a breath and says, "You cannot give that order, Doctor."

"But I can and will execute it."

"No," she repeats firmly, "you will not. Go wait in the infirmary. I will return your Captain to you."

 _Can_ he step back from that place, once set in words? Can he stand down, after invoking the wrath of a Time Lord?

Would Jack ever forgive him if he did not?

But of course he would. He has forgiven so much worse without the least reluctance. No, the one Jack would never forgive - is himself. For being the cause; for not stopping him. And the Doctor cannot add to his pain, today.

"Five minutes," he says, and stalks away without waiting for a response, the two Clerics blocking the door falling in behind him like an honour guard.

He spends three minutes satisfying himself that the infirmary is well stocked both with supplies and equipment and with knowledgeable personnel; another minute pacing. Eighteen seconds poking things with his cane, at which point it has been five minutes, and still no Jack. Increasingly vicious pokes turn back into pacing, back and forth and then around the perimeter of the room. He rages, but stands still for another pass of the tissue regenerator for lack of other pastime; something in his brain finds it of potential value to be better able to protect Jack once he has him safely enfolded in his aegis again. He combines everything, yelling as he makes a great clatter around the room, but somehow that is not as satisfying as quiet menace. He threatens Tasha again at eleven minutes, ineffectually.

Finally, thirteen minutes and forty eight seconds after he stepped back from that edge, Jack appears on a bed. The Doctor reaches him first, possibly by means of foul play as someone ends up on the floor, but as it's not _him_ he can't be bothered to care. He attempts to loom scarily, until the medic with the soft voice from before points out that it's working.

"You're scaring him, sir," she says. Her nametag says Liroa.

Shocked from his defensive anger, the Doctor's eyes go wide. "He's not afraid of _me!_ "

"I don't think he knows it's you."

Whipping around, the Doctor catches Jack cringing back, eyes wide and fearful. To have that look aimed squarely at _him_ again is a kick in the gut; the flames of anger buoying him collapse, fall softly spent like ashes. No attention left to spare the others, the Time Lord seats himself gingerly on the bed, gentles his expression. "It's me, Jack, it's just me. You're safe here, I promise, but I'll take you back to the TARDIS if you'd rather."

Jack jolts when he mentions the TARDIS, a shock of recognition traveling through him. Reaching up to touch the Doctor's face tentatively, he asks, childlike in his desperation for reassurance, "Really you?"

"Really me," the Doctor assures him, covering Jack's hand with his. "Oh, Captain, what -" but there will be plenty of time for that later. "You're safe, Jack."

"You're safe," Jack repeats, which makes his hearts seize briefly. "You're safe, not dead, you're safe -" Abruptly he reaches for the Doctor's right leg, hoists it up; his brows draw together in confusion. "Did you, was there -"

The outlines of a horrible picture are beginning to paint themselves in the Doctor's mind. "Yes," he says, "but I fixed it. Boots don't match, see?" He lifts his other foot to give Jack another data point to strengthen his attachment to _this_ reality, where the Doctor was injured but lives, and not the one Jack has been living in for the last half hour, where the Doctor is a smear of atoms lost in a teleport hijack. At the edge of his vision Medic Liroa is engaged in scanning Jack thoroughly, careful not to touch either of them.

"Your cane?"

The Doctor holds up his spare. "Broken, took a slice right out of it."

"And," Jack says, lifting worried eyes to examine the Doctor closely, taking in the lack of coat and waistcoat, the braces hanging severed, the bandages. "You?"

"Yes," the Doctor admits, "but nothing serious." A sceptical huff of breath comes from the side; the Doctor scowls. "I barely even noticed it until I got back here."

"And when you did, you nearly fainted," Liroa adds, uninvited.

"I don't believe I asked for commentary," the Doctor says, but Jack smiles at her and despite the situation, despite the Doctor's sincere desire to be _better than that_ , the jealousy flares back up as if it had never left.

"Current status of the injury?" Jack asks, oblivious to his difficulty or just not in the mood to humour him.

"I am a Doctor," the Doctor grumbles.

Jack turns the smile his way, which goes some way toward reparations. "You're the patient. I want an outside opinion."

"Largely healed," Liroa admits. "It took two passes with the tissue regenerator so it's fragile, and he'll want an application of the dermal regenerator to avoid scarring, but he shouldn't be in much pain anymore." Jack looks to him for agreement; the Doctor nods. “I strongly recommend supervised rest.”

Eyes narrowing as he catches the undertones, Jack pins the Doctor with a questioning stare: _What have you been up to?_ The Doctor widens his eyes innocently. No answer forthcoming, Jack looks warily back at the medic. "And… me?"

She presses her lips together for a moment, glancing likewise warily at the Doctor. "Captain Harkness, I must inform you that I and one other cleric have observed a video stream of you for approximately the previous twenty minutes to your rescue. A different person has reviewed the audio. The Doctor -" Where Jack has been stonily stoic at the news of strangers seeing him, here he blanches slightly. "- has seen approximately three minutes of video, specifically containing application of the neurowhip, which was sufficient to convince him you were dissociated and in danger of long-term mental effects. Your records are sealed and confidential by order of the Mother Superious and I will discuss only what you give me leave to, but I am happy to report that physical trauma appears minimal and the speed with which you reassociated is encouraging."

"He's not dead," Jack says, turning to the Doctor with a breathtaking smile that doesn't quite hide the tension in his jaw. "The rest was easy." 

The Doctor edges up the bed and wraps his arms around his Captain, still holding himself back from the snarling circle of protection he would rather be right now. He aches to take Jack away from here, to lay him down in their own bed and care for him body and mind and soul, to hold him tight and keep him close and never let this happen again. To never let him go. But that way lies madness, a straight and narrow path to a hell they have been through already, and the more he lets himself imagine it possible, the harder it will be to ever let him go.

Medically cleared in short order, Jack is all brisk pleasantry as he asks Medic Liroa if now wouldn’t be a good time for the dermal regenerator, to get the Doctor cleared as well. 

“I would prefer to wait at least another hour, if possible,” she says apologetically. “Regrowing that much tissue is just as much a trauma to the body as losing it in the first place.”

Jack looks startled. “ _How_ much tissue?”

“I’m fine, Jack,” the Doctor grumbles, sat now in a chair beside Jack’s bed, hand tightly clasped in his. Jack frowns at him. The Doctor leans back defiantly in the chair, trying to find a comfortable angle without showing any sign that discomfort is a consideration. It certainly isn’t a major one, compared to his desire to remove Jack to the safety of the TARDIS.

Raising an eloquent eyebrow, Jack says, "So am I."

"Mm." The Doctor subsides, temporarily. 

"About -" the medic holds her hand up, fingers fully outstretched, in demonstration, "two hundred fifty square centimetres at the surface, or a bit more, with bone exposed at the deepest."

"Erm," the Doctor says, vaguely surprised, as Jack's eyes widen.

"We'll wait," Jack decides. If anyone present finds it odd that the Doctor should be deferring to him now, it isn't obvious. Catching the Doctor's restless shifting, Jack swings his legs off the bed and amends, "Maybe not here. Anywhere on this behemoth a couple of dirt-suckers might go to see the stars?"

It is not entirely obvious to the Doctor how he lost the initiative, but with Jack in control of his faculties he is unable to regain it and soon finds himself tucked away with his Captain in a rather posh observation lounge not so far from Tasha's room. The floor is matte black under his mismatched boots, the furnishings likewise dark, if not quite so much as to suggest non-existence. The lighting is arranged so subtly as to appear sourceless. One entire wall curves up crystal clear and nonreflective, encompassing half the ceiling as well to showcase a breathtaking panorama of -

Of everything. Everything that ever was or ever will be. Everything he has lost, and will never see again.

Rooted to the floor, the Doctor stands just inside the door with an endless empty chasm in his chest, horribly breathless. 

"Fantastic," Jack breathes, hands pressed flat to the invisible barrier. As he draws another breath so does the Doctor, but it relieves the ache only slightly. "Look at that, Doctor, it's all…" He laughs. "It's all still there, I was going to say. Isn't that stupid?" _Not after the day you've had_ , the Doctor doesn't say; Jack doesn't seem to notice his silence. "I wish… I wish we could have showed Barney," he finishes softly, fingers stretching longingly toward the universe.

“He wouldn’t have come up.” It comes out sharper than he intended, and Jack stiffens.

“That’s so,” he agrees, without turning. “But it’s because he didn’t want you thinking about leaving. Not because he didn’t want to see.”

“Whereas you,” the Doctor says viciously, unwilling to think about this new revelation just yet, “have done nothing at all _but_ leave, since he died.”

“Is this about today?” Incredulous, Jack spins to stare at him. Through the brightness of him the stars shine clearly, bright in a different way, their steady gleam a riot of motion and change compared to the Fact of Jack. In the centuries since the last time the Doctor could see so clearly, the starfield has shifted and warped as the galaxy rotates, as the differing trajectories and speeds of individual stars make strangers of those previously close. How long will Jack be able to love such a universe, always changing irretrievably around him whilst he remains the same? “You’re blaming me for getting kidnapped? It’s my fault you tried to start a war?”

“For you, Jack,” the Doctor says darkly, trying to ignore the unendurable view beyond, “I would end a war.”

Jack does not mistake his meaning. "Don't you dare," he whispers, face draining of colour. "Don't you _dare_.”

“I would.”

A little thrill runs down the Doctor’s spine as Jack crosses the room on a haze of fire. “Don’t you put that on me. You don’t have a right. You come back and get me later, Doctor, _I’ll be there_."

Enduring more than anyone should have to. “If you hadn’t come with -”

“Then they would have got you, instead. Accomplished my goal admirably, I’d say.”

 _Take a bullet for you_ , he’d said. Unacceptable. The entire situation is unacceptable, his own reactions dangerously unhinged. Far from being a show of strength, his intemperate rampage at the first sign of threat to his Captain showcases a weakness a more sensible part of him knows he can ill afford. Awash in conflicting emotions, the Doctor demands, “Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” Jack says easily, which doesn’t help and in fact makes things worse, because the Doctor can’t tell whether he is lying.

He reaches out, lays a hand over that eternal heartbeat; Jack, with visible effort, does not flinch. “What are you hiding from me? What did they do?”

The corner of his Captain’s mouth quirks up. “Very little.”

“I _saw_ you, Jack, hanging there, that blank look in your eyes -”

He presses harder, and Jack’s jaw goes tense. “Stop that.” Still without quite appearing to be in pain, he captures the Doctor’s hand and pries it away from his chest, holds it captive between them. “All that, they were trying to get me _back_. I’ve never broken so fast. They brought in… the pieces. Your boot, your cane, your… Told me that’s all that was left. Worst torturers I’ve ever met, Doc. They killed me with the first cut.”

The Doctor stares blankly ahead as the soundless _snap_ of his nerve breaking once and for all echoes between his ears. All this time he has promised himself _later_ , he will tell Jack later, let this life stretch just a little longer - now he knows he never can. It is far, far too much to ask of him, that he should have to be the one to deliver the news of his own death and watch it destroy his Captain.

He will have to make Jack leave some other way.

There will be no better opportunity, he suspects. Grimly determined, the Doctor extracts his hand from Jack’s and steps back. Jack watches him, confusion fading into alarm. “I’ve let this go on too long. You came here for love of me, Jack, and I will never be able to thank you for all your time and effort,” and if that’s a little more painfully truthful than he quite meant, well, that’s not for Jack to know yet. “I appreciate it more than I can say. But since you’ve come I’ve put you in danger, I’ve got you hurt and killed -” Jack makes a move to interrupt but he can’t allow the distraction of an argument. “No, listen - I’ve neglected and abused you. I’ve driven you out into the wilderness to die alone in the cold and then pick yourself up and keep going. I’ve been petty and jealous and angry and every awful bit of me has taken a bite out of you, and now kidnap and torture in my name and it’s got to stop, Jack. I don’t want any more of it.”

Brow faintly creased, Jack asks as if in simple clarification, “You don’t want any more of…?”

Screwing his courage to the sticking place, the Doctor says firmly, “You. I don’t want any more of you. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Captain. I want you to leave.”

That shuttered blankness slams down over Jack's face as he falls still, as he takes a breath; releases it, takes another. To the Doctor's surprise, as he stands there waiting for - whatever it is he's waiting for: a shouting match, a punch, a desolation rendered all the worse for Jack's constant presence for nearly two centuries - the tension in Jack's shoulders quickly drains away, the blankness in his eyes replaced by a much more dangerous curiosity. He cocks his head at the Doctor as if he were a particularly troublesome puzzle.

After another moment, Jack shakes his head and turns toward the door. "Not having this conversation here, Doc."

"Do you need an audience for your domestics, too?" But Jack has apparently decided to ignore him and is already out the door. "Jack!" An irrational panic washes over the Doctor that he _is_ leaving, right now, just like that, leaving the Doctor alone in the dark without so much as a goodbye, without a last smile, a last touch, without a glimmer of light to sustain him all the rest of the years of his long, lonely stand.

But then he realises the truth, and that may be worse: Jack has sussed his deception, and is returning to Trenzalore.

“Jack!” he calls again desperately, chasing after a man who thinks _sensible precautions_ are for other people. “Jack! Don’t use the teleport!” But Jack is well ahead of him, and then he is abruptly very far away; whether the distance is the other side of the planet or a far-flung spaceship in orbit the Doctor can’t tell, but either way he will not lose his Captain again. Cursing without care, he halts his momentum against the TARDIS’s console, throws the lever with enough force to make her complain. He is out the door before the echoes of the engines fade, fleetingly grateful to find no one obstructing his way but far more grateful to find himself returned to close orbit of his eternal sun with feet firmly planted on the skin of a planet whose motions are more familiar to him than breathing.

As the Doctor storms into the tower, time seems to widen and slow as the edge of the moment breaks over the deep-rooted stillness of Jack, standing waiting for him in the open space at the centre. “Of all the stupid things I’ve seen you do, Captain, that isn’t even close to the worst -” _sod_ the truth field - “You had no idea whether that was safe, they could have taken you again. If you don’t want me doing stupid things on your behalf, then quit doing stupid things I have to rescue you from!” Arms crossed loosely, lit in strange highlights by the lights of the square falling in through the high windows, Jack remains impassive until the Doctor runs down.

“What you said, up there,” Jack says then, with a little jerk of his head upward, “say it again.”

The Doctor swallows tightly. “That’s not fair.”

Jack's grin is sharp and dark as obsidian. “What does fair have to do with it?”

“I don't want to hurt you anymore.”

“The other part,” Jack prompts.

He can’t, of course. Daren’t try, for fear of what will come out of his mouth; so instead he goes on the attack. “You’re a _weakness_ ,” he spits. Jack flinches and the satisfaction is poisonously bitter. “You’re a raw bleeding edge anyone can walk right up to and tug on, like - like a nose ring on a bull, don’t you _know_ that? You’re a barbed fishhook, Jack, I can’t let go of you.”

-+-+-+-

 


	44. Never let him doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: consensual violence, scene gone wrong, jealousy and renegotiation._

He had needed to know. He had _needed_ to know, but that doesn’t calm Jack’s conscience in the face of the wreck of a man standing before him, pain radiating from the widening cracks in his facade. The euphoria of finding him _alive_ still washes through Jack in great tidal surges; it’s all he can do to keep it off his face now, when the Doctor’s precarious state of mind would receive it poorly. How such a promising day has come to this Jack doesn’t quite know, but his mind is working overtime assembling all the pieces in the background. He will just have to do his best until he understands, because although the Doctor can do many things, asking for what he needs has never been one of them.

“You want me to do it for you, then, that’s what this is? Just rip that barb out?” Jack infuses his voice with enough scornful derision that the Time Lord can take it as an insult instead of a question if he’d rather, but he doesn’t take the opportunity.

“Yes,” the Doctor says, teeth bared, standing braced as if against a stiff wind. “I want you to do it for me.”

He doesn’t want Jack to leave; so much so that instead of even trying to twist words to seem as if he does, he delivered the most savage declaration of love Jack has ever been on the receiving end of. Maybe he doesn’t even realise that’s what it was; but what is love if not the vulnerability of shared pain? But he is so viscerally terrified of something that happens if Jack stays that he is trying to make Jack leave _even so_.

Whenever things are wrong between them, Jack tells himself it’s the secrets.

But this time, he really does think it’s the secrets.

Not at all sure what he is doing, Jack raises his hand, lays fingertips as light as snow, as light as wish, at the centre of the Doctor’s chest. “Which heart?”

“What?” His eyes are wild, and Jack wonders if his task is to heal the Doctor - or to take him apart.

“Which heart would I be ripping out with it?”

For a moment Jack thinks that might be enough; his face goes slack and everything in his eyes is pain, down to the very depths. But the next moment the mask snaps back over it, concealing even as cracked and battered as it is. “You think I care what you do?” the Doctor snarls, the lines of his face drawn tight in rage. “You think you can lead me around by the nose like this, keep me in reserve for when you’ve nothing better to spend your _affections_ on, and then expect me to bail you out of idiotic predicaments you are only in because you think you have a right to _my life?_ ”

Jack backs up a step, and another, heart racing, mind soaring. He hadn’t thought any of that, of course; but maybe this is where all the missing jealousy has got to, all the things he’s done because he _wanted_ the Doctor to care not ignored or unseen but drawing blood each time, reaction suppressed in an effort to let him do as he pleased. He had asked the question, earlier today, and been cut to the quick by the answer. It had taken him inexcusable hours to remember that the truth field was not in effect on the Mainframe, when the Doctor had been aware and taking advantage of it from the beginning. Another step back; the Doctor is herding him toward the bedroom. He can ask again. “Are you jealous?”

“Murderously,” the Doctor breathes, and shoves him hard through the doorway.

Caught by surprise, Jack cries out and falls to one knee, pain sizzling through him like fiery needles. He’s going to have to send that medic flowers for her discretion. What the Doctor doesn’t know can’t hurt him, and Jack truly has very little physical trauma; but his nerves are still fried from the neurowhip. A look of concern flashes over the Time Lord’s face but for once, Jack is becoming increasingly sure, _stopping_ is not what he needs.

“That explains all that, then,” gesturing orbit-ward for distraction as he pulls himself back to his feet. “Looking for someone to murder?”

The concern disappears instantly. “Why go so far when I have a willing victim right here?”

A terrified thrill shudders through Jack at the bite of his voice, the look on his face. Beneath the cruel words the pain driving it all is beginning to thread through with relief. This is what he wants, then, for Jack to push and push and never let him doubt that his Captain can steer him aright, can withstand any storm. Jack bares his teeth, unable to keep the fierce joy from his face. This is where he _earns_ it. Completely honest, Jack says, “I’d like to see you try.”

“If I _try_ ,” the Doctor promises, “I will _succeed_ , Captain.”

“Your success in life is ever my goal,” Jack says with a mocking bow. 

“Wipe that offensive smirk off your face.”

“Do it yourself, coward.” The Doctor’s fist catches him below the jaw and sends him spinning, stumbling to the bed, nerves lighting in discordant cascades. “Is that the best you can do? I’ve had better than that _today_.”

A hand pulls him up by the throat and Jack has cause to wonder if maybe that wasn’t a bit too much, given the effect the events of the day have had on the Doctor. Face dark with rage, the Doctor growls, " _Anyone_ who touched you today -"

"Promises, promises," Jack admonishes, waggling a finger tauntingly. The Doctor shoves him away; Jack does his best to land in an insolent, artistic heap on the bed, although he decides pouting would probably be taking it too far. "What about the people who touched me last month? Last year? Are you going to take up time travel again to exact your revenge on -"

With an inarticulate scream the Doctor launches himself onto Jack in a flurry of painful limbs; the wooden knee in his diaphragm makes him see stars, _feel_ stars, as he struggles for breath. He feels himself sliding up the bed, shoulders lifted and teeth clashing together as the Doctor shakes him with hands fisted in his shirt. A button tears off, and another; Jack thinks vaguely that fixating on buttons at the moment is a bad sign. It would have been better to do this on a day that hadn't already included dissociation and torture.

"I would have destroyed that ship and picked you out of the wreckage," the Doctor spits, eyes flashing. He drops Jack back to the bed, raises his fist. "I might have taken you back and damned them all, let this war start and ended it with you at my side. I've given you everything I can, everything I have and everything I wish I had, but it's never _enough_." Each time he says _everything_ there is the dull thud of fist striking flesh, a new ripple of pain tearing through Jack's nerves and reflecting, interfering, becoming strange patterns in the resonance chamber of his body. "Why isn't it enough?"

“You’re not _trying_ yet,” Jack manages to gasp. The muffled _crack_ of bone accompanies the next impact, the unnatural shift as ribs give. Jack's next breath is excruciating and he chokes on it. The next is no better.

“Why am I not good enough, Jack?” the Doctor demands, ancient eyes peering into Jack’s as if to compel an answer to a question Jack doesn’t understand. 

He should say something. He should do his job. He should shove this angel of retribution perched atop him, at least, he should do _something_ combative. Instead, will depleted by the trials of the day and betrayed by a body magnifying pain to a white-hot intensity, Jack sinks away from _shoulds_ and _whys_ and words, falls back on long habit, and surrenders.

Like an overdrawn spring the Doctor recoils instantly, eyes filling with horror. “No,” he says through teeth clenched tight. “ _No_ , don’t -” Gasping, crouched over Jack, hand still pressed against the broken ribs, he turns his head in stuttering motions like he’s trying to clear it. “Why did you stop?” 

Still as a statue Jack stares at him. The words aren’t coming back yet. He shakes his head.

“Push me as far as you like.” Moving with a sense of intense presence, the Doctor sets his hand aside, raises himself off Jack. “But don’t… if we do this, Jack, you have to stay with me. Otherwise…”

He trails off. _Otherwise?_ Jack blinks, lays still, waiting for words, waiting for things to make sense. Something immense and devastated lurks behind the Doctor's eyes, a wordless thing of his own; he sinks down onto the bed and watches Jack, waiting for him to understand. Just… waiting. Brilliantly articulate when it comes to Jack's needs, responsive and thoughtful in the power he wields over his immortal lover, when it comes to his own needs he is an uncertain wreck.

Jack has fundamentally misunderstood the dynamics here. He had been meeting the Doctor's needs; when he tried to surrender, he ceased to do so, no matter he was still willing to take anything the Doctor was pleased to give him. Otherwise _what?_ He can push the Doctor to his limits, and beyond if he wants, apparently, but if Jack lets go - 

Then no one is in control. Not if the Doctor has handed over everything to his Captain for safekeeping, down to the very bottom, down to the fury of a Time Lord.

"Oh," Jack breathes, shivering as the realisation pours over him like cold rain. He knows what broken trust feels like. Without thinking, he tries to sit up, but subsides with a pained groan; he raises a hand instead and the Doctor laces their fingers together and holds on as to a lifeline. The words are inadequate, but - "I'm sorry, Doctor."

"Not your fault," his lover whispers, shaking his head.

"It kind of is," Jack disagrees gently. "I hid how much pain I was in. I thought I - I _wanted_ to be able to do this for you. It's been so long since you let me see you needed anything at all."

"I need you," the Doctor admits, laying down next to him, hiding his face against Jack's shoulder.

"I see that now." He kisses the Doctor's wildly disarranged hair, the only comfort he can offer yet without significant pain. “Doctor,” he ventures after a minute or a few, trying to keep his own hurt bewilderment out of his voice, “I don’t understand. What do you think you’re not good enough for?”

Drawing a ragged breath, the Doctor says uncertainly, “To, for you to - you keep - you didn’t leave, when Barnable was here.” He raises himself to an elbow and peers down at Jack, swallows nervously. “I know you want me to be him, Jack, but I _can’t_ -”

Mental landscape flattened like the aftermath of an explosion by that incredible statement, Jack protests, “ _You_ want me to be him! Helpmeet, quiet companion -”

“I can’t take care of you like he did, and I certainly can’t do _romantic_ -”

“No obnoxious demands for attention, or affection, or sex -”

Defensively, the Doctor fires back, “Letting you get away with all this ridiculous hovering!” but he is beginning to look as hollowed out as Jack feels.

“You let him help you!” Jack cries, and falls silent, all his truth bled out over the age-dimmed blue bedspread for the Doctor to see.

“I wanted you to be happy,” the Doctor whispers. They stare at each other in the silence.

Finally Jack says, “I haven’t been.”

The Doctor tilts his head in bleak acknowledgement. “I see that now.”

“I left for three years when he was here,” Jack says plaintively, still confused. He had wanted those years back so very, very badly, for so long.

“Yes, but not…” The Doctor looks away. “Not to someone else.”

“Of course not. That’s not how it worked with Barney. Just like I don’t bring people here for sex. Doc…” Jack frowns, suspicious. “You know if you want to change the rules, you have to _tell me?_ ”

The Doctor flushes bright red. “I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

“I don’t want you to feel like this,” Jack counters. “This isn’t _fun_ jealousy anymore. Doctor, this has nothing to do with not being good enough, or not being Barney, or not being what I want. I want you. What do you want?”

“I want you not to come back to me smelling like other people,” the Doctor growls, leaning down to bite Jack’s shoulder, very lightly; the sawing shimmer of it radiates like a plucked string. Jack doesn’t protest.

“Does that mean it’s alright to have sex with other people if I make sure you don’t know?” The teeth abruptly tighten, and Jack chuckles. “Use your words, Doctor. You’re good at it.”

He sighs as he lets go. “I think… I want to not share you, Jack, just… as long as you stay on Trenzalore. Please."

"Sexual exclusivity," Jack clarifies. The Doctor nods against his shoulder. "Romantic exclusivity?" He nods again. "Mutual?"

"It always has been," the Time Lord says, muffled and vaguely offended. "Here."

 _Here_ indeed. Come to it, Jack has never been quite sure whether the Doctor considers him a romantic entanglement at all. _Meaningful_ and _important_ are easier to judge, across species and vast stretches of time, and Jack is generally content to tick both of those. "Tasha enjoys the occasional joke at my expense," he says in explanation, ignoring the Doctor's surprised snigger. "Dancing with people? I know what your sense of smell is like."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Jack shifts his arm, shoving his lover's head lightly. "The whole point of this conversation is that I apparently _don't_ know. Dancing alright, then."

"You don't - you don't have to _agree_ to it, Jack." Dragged from him in conscientious protest, as if he is afraid Jack has forgotten his own agency.

Kissing his hair again, Jack tries reaching across his body to touch the Doctor's cheek and finds that it isn't too terribly painful. "But I do. And in return you’ll stop pushing me away, won’t you. And next time you need _this_ of me," he waves his hand, “I’ll get it right.”

“Yes, you will,” the Doctor agrees quietly, and that's when another realisation rocks Jack.

"Your Jack," he says; it’s the first time he has committed it to words. The Doctor's teeth click closed. "Your Jack would have understood."

After a breathless silence, the Doctor sets his jaw and attempts, "Why would you think -"

"Shh. None of that. I don't mean - well, you _know_ what I mean. After all these years, I'm the most yours I've ever been, it's everything I never dared hope, Doctor, you know that. But someday we'll go. And sometime in my future… I'm someone a little different, and you still miss him. I haven't been _your Jack_ for a very long time."

“Spoilers,” the Doctor says, turning his face into the bed, not bothering to deny it. Jack huffs an incredulous, painful laugh.

“ _Spoilers_ is where we meet next, or why River thinks curtain ties are so hilarious, or why when we went to Gosla that one time everyone wanted my autograph. Still haven't got to that. No, if this is a spoiler, it’s either the biggest spoiler ever, or it's… or it's the worst." That possibility seems all too likely, all of a sudden. Jack backs off, circles it warily. It isn’t the disjunction in their histories itself that worries him, exactly; there has always been some of that, even if Jack has lived a millennium in more-or-less linear congruence with this Doctor. It’s more about how badly the Doctor has always hid it. The magnitude of secrets he can keep with no sign is startling, but Jack has always known _something_ is wrong; whatever he is hiding must cut right to the core. The close proximity to Jack for so long surely doesn’t help, but… he has hidden River’s death from her all her life, after all. "You're usually better at lying."

With a wretched little hiccough of a laugh, the Time Lord says, "I think I'm doing pretty well, considering."

"You've lied to River for how long? Doctor…" Struck by a nearly inconceivable thought, Jack tugs at his lover's hand to make him look up. "You would tell me, wouldn't you? If I died, someday?"

Eyes going wide, the Doctor makes a small, pained noise and somehow collapses upward to press his face against Jack's chest; and then Jack remembers that as inconceivable as it seems to him, it must be much more so to the Doctor, and possibly existentially terrifying as well. He wraps his arm around the Doctor, pulling him close; no matter the broken ribs, the pain is beginning to fade now anyway. He is surprised when the Doctor chooses to answer.

"If I were certain. Yes, I would. I wouldn’t keep that from you. But, Jack… false hope there would be unforgivably cruel."

"Yeah," Jack concedes. "Yeah, it would." They lie together as Jack’s ribs knit, as the bruises fade, as he does not so much as begin to imagine the possibility that the Doctor might have a glimmer of false hope to offer. He runs a hand up one side of his lover's back and down the other, to ground him firmly in the here and now, and gradually the Doctor relaxes. After a fairly successful deep breath, Jack offers, “Give me another hour, I think, and I’ll be back in fighting form.”

“I’m alright now,” the Doctor mumbles, not bothering to raise his head. “Can’t do it in cold blood.”

“Ah.” Jack takes another breath. Onward, then. "It's not spoilers."

"Hm?"

"You said you'd tell me, after everything else. That's not how spoilers work." Gone rigidly still against him, the Doctor is silent. "Is it so bad, then, that you were trying to make me leave before you had to tell?"

Very quietly, the Doctor says, "I ask too much of you again, Jack."

"There's no _too much_. How could there be?" He had tested Jack nearly to destruction the day they met, and Jack has followed him ever since; through death and Daleks, more years than Jack can count and more pain than Jack can remember. "It's alright, Doctor, all of it." The Doctor shakes his head but doesn't answer. "So how long do I have to wait? How long until we can catch up to each other again?”

The sound the Doctor makes then, low and hollow and horrible in the same way as the movement of broken bones, would have driven Jack to his knees if he hadn't already been on his back. “I can’t, Jack, please don’t make me yet -” and Jack is no longer certain he wants to know, no longer sure anything will be right, ever again.

-+-+-+-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The next chapter will heal some of the hurt, I promise._


	45. Fleeting joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: not-actually-very-explicit sex._

Jack never wants his apologies, and it seems to be catching.

When he had returned to the Mainframe at Jack’s insistence for the promised application of the dermal regenerator, Medic Liroa had exclaimed in dismay at his shoulder and frowned at his bruised and swollen knuckles. The Doctor had tucked his hands into his pockets self-consciously, and tried to apologise. She wouldn’t hear it. “I’m just the medic,” she said, with a hard look that made the Doctor wonder if his guilt wasn’t somehow emblazoned across his forehead. “But whatever you’ve been doing, _don’t_.”

She had made him sit still for an additional pass of the tissue regenerator as well, even though he promised not to. He didn’t protest.

He had tried to apologise to Tasha, but she dismissed his attempt without even a frown. “You would do it again in a second,” she pointed out. “It’s worthless.” She won’t tell him how she retrieved Jack, or who from, either; just that whoever it was won’t do it again. The Doctor wonders if she knows he’d do it again in a second if he lost _her_ , as well.

On his return to Trenzalore he had attempted to apologise for running off, and for ignoring the concern for his shoulder, but Jack had apparently been immensely reassuring to all parties whilst he was away and everyone assures him he had done right, and how glad they are that his shoulder is healed, and all’s well as ends well.

And when the last affirmation has been spoken, when the last child finishes hugging him, when they are done denying him any measure of guilt, he finds himself at the stairs to the tower, looking up. Might he have truly spent all this to save Jack what amounts to a single drop of pain out of an endless ocean? He had said it; he had meant it. He fights to save fleeting mortal lives, and he fights just as hard for Jack’s fleeting joy. If the Doctor had ever been the sort to give up when faced with the sheer scale of a problem, he would not be here, now.

He has tried to give Jack every happiness. It’s clear now he went terribly awry somewhere, but he has plenty of _trying_ left in him. He takes a breath, and climbs the stairs.

“Jack? I’m home,” he calls as he hangs up his coat, pulls off his boots.

Jack appears in the door to the kitchen, warm smile on his lips, a mug cradled in his hands. “There you are. Everyone want a piece of you?”

“Everyone,” the Doctor agrees. Letting the gravity between them pull him in, he goes to stand before his Captain. “But I saved the best for you.”

Eyebrows pinching in, Jack’s smile goes slightly sideways as he examines the Doctor’s face, eyes curiously bright. He raises the mug to the Doctor’s lips, tips it carefully; the steam wreathes his face in warmth and the smell of cider and spices is overwhelming, hot on his tongue and in his throat and down to his stomach. Another one of Jack’s experiments, aiming for some perfection long since reached. His lips quirk up as the Doctor drinks. Setting the mug aside, he lays a hand against the Doctor’s cheek, the heat of it striking so deep the Doctor feels his eyes fall closed, his neck relax against that sure support; when Jack chuckles he finds he can’t mind. A thumb swipes across his lip, cleaning away the remnants of cider there.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor says, one last try.

Jack sounds amused. “For what?”

“For hurting you. I don’t want to hurt you.” And despite all his actions to the contrary, it really is true.

“I know,” his Captain says, tugging him forward; he presses his face against Jack’s shoulder, inhales and immerses himself in Jack’s scent, now cleansed of all the others from earlier. “It’s alright.”

His breath shudders out in a long sigh. “I don’t understand you, Jack.”

“I know,” Jack says again. His arms are tight around the Doctor’s back, one hand cupping the back of his head, fingers threaded through his hair. “That's alright, too. Pain is part of loving you, part of being loved by you. You don't have to like it, but you have to find a way to accept it, because I'm not going to stop loving you for your convenience and you can't be running away every time you hurt me. Life is pain. And life is what I've got.”

The Doctor can’t help but think Jack will be so terribly disappointed in his past self; he never did anything _but_ run away from that terrifying love, no matter what he told himself. Only here, with what time remains; only now, with a Jack he would be lying to himself to claim is not his own. “I’ll hurt you again,” he says, but it’s not a protest, not even really a warning.

“Good,” Jack says, and yanks the Doctor’s head back to seal their lips together, thrust his tongue searing and possessive into the Doctor’s mouth, open in a cry of surprise. Jack takes his cry, takes his breath, takes his weight as he leans into the deepness of the fixed point, holds him close as the Doctor’s hands tug fitfully at his shoulders, creep up into his hair, cane discarded to the floor. “I want you,” Jack says hoarsely, breaking away, “now.” The Doctor nods, eyes wide, and then warm hands are hooked under his thighs, lifting him, spreading him wide and vulnerable against that pillar of eternal fire. His breath catches as he clings tighter to his Captain’s shoulders.

“Jack -”

“Not going far.”

Cheeks burning, the Doctor buries his face in Jack’s hair, tightens legs around his hips. “That’s not -”

“Oh,” Jack says, voice a pleased rumble. “You like that.” Once inside the bedroom he leans the Doctor against the wall experimentally, presses against him as his hands paint delightful strokes of fire across the Doctor’s arse and thighs. “Don’t think I can make that work,” he says regretfully after a minute, returning his hands to holding the Doctor up, “but clearly we’ve got the right idea.”

The Doctor bites his lip but it doesn’t really help quiet the embarrassing little noises. Jack laughs and bites his lip too. “Hng!” the Doctor protests. Smiling, Jack licks it in apology, none too careful with where his tongue strays. “This,” the Doctor says, somewhat muffled, “this is why I don’t like you being so friendly, Captain, one bad idea leads to the next, and -” Suddenly he is horizontal, laid down on the bed with Jack over him, between his spread thighs, grinding down against him to much better effect. “Jack,” he moans, arching up into the warm solidity pinning him to the bed. “Jack, please.”

“I was thinking,” Jack says, nuzzling into his neck, “about earlier. You wanted me to push, and push, and push. You wanted me to take you as far as you could go.” The Doctor follows his voice, low and mesmerising, into a dark place where his breaths come quick and deep. “Would you like to lose control, Doctor?”

“Only with you,” he says, hands drifting over his Captain’s eternally young back, smoothing around his waist, following the contours of his backside as it flexes to drive their hips together again, and again. “Only to you.”

He moans as Jack sucks a bruise into the delicate skin over his pulse, as he licks at it, traces the line of the Doctor’s jaw with his tongue, searing heat followed by quick chill. Jack nudges his chin up to kiss down his throat but in the middle he bites instead, not hard but the feel of teeth is still terribly startling and the Doctor’s eyes fly open as he whines and bucks and swallows reflexively - and then slowly subsides, because the teeth are still there but so is Jack’s body, firm and heavy against him, so is Jack’s stillness, holding him safe and anchored. He closes his eyes, lifts his chin. Jack bites again, and the Doctor moans as the thrill of it chases through him.

Then Jack sits back, knees bracketing the Doctor’s hips, to start on the waistcoat buttons; the Doctor has to hold back a cry of dismay. Everywhere he had been warm is cold now, everywhere he had been held he is abandoned. He tightens his knee folded over Jack’s hip lest he try to go further and starts at his collar after Jack pushes his waistcoat and braces off his shoulders.

“Impatient?” his lover asks with a smile.

“Yes,” the Doctor says plaintively, which is apparently not the answer Jack was expecting. His smile twists into an expression of surprised tenderness and he works his way up the shirt buttons quickly, then takes the Doctor’s hands one at a time to kiss his palms and undo the cuff buttons. 

“You can leave it on,” Jack says, “I just wanted -” He leans down to kiss the center of the Doctor’s chest, and again a little lower, and lower still, letting his cheek slide along the exposed skin. When he reaches trousers he makes a pleased noise and the Doctor groans in need as the warmth of Jack’s breath envelopes his cock, as lips close around him, tantalising in their promise through the thick fabric. He fumbles at his buttons but Jack catches his wrists and tucks them against his chest with one large hand; the quick grin Jack sends upward is an assurance that he had no expectation of being _given_ control. So instead the Doctor tries to keep his squirming to a minimum and deny Jack the satisfaction but he is relentless, the heat of his mouth and the meandering of his hand and the touch of his tongue on bare skin drawing from the Doctor an increasing stream of babbled pleas and threats. When at last his control does break for a moment Jack takes the motion upward much too far and kneels all the way up.

“Don’t stop,” the Doctor begs, panting.

“I’m not going to stop,” Jack says, opening his trousers and pulling them down, just off his hips. “I’m going to make you come. And then I’m going to make you come again.” He wrestles the Doctor’s trousers entirely off. The Doctor reaches for the straps for his prosthetic leg and undoes them; it seems unnecessary in this moment. Smiling, Jack slides his hand over the Doctor’s leg reassuringly, pulls it against his side. “And then I’m going to make you come _again_ ,” he says, smile turning wicked, “and if that’s not enough - well. We could be here for a long time.” The Doctor makes a noise he can’t identify; it makes Jack look very smug. “I think you’ll enjoy this kind of losing control better.”

Dispensing with his own shirts quickly, Jack reaches for the oil by the side of the bed and slicks his cock with a groan. He settles himself back over the Doctor, who sighs in relief at the return of his sun and then chokes on a howling moan when Jack’s hand encircles both of them in tight, slick heat. Half gone already, his hips stutter wildly although Jack does no more than pin him down as before, cover him with the living warmth of that eternal flame, the smell of his skin, the taste of his mouth. Jack’s breath in his lungs; the Doctor fancies he can feel it heating him from the inside, as if he needed more, as if he were not already burning up everywhere they touch.

Thrusting against the smooth firmness of his lover’s cock, the Doctor finally finds a comfortable rhythm - and then _Jack_ groans, head falling to the Doctor’s shoulder, hand squeezing tighter for a moment. The Doctor frowns at him indignantly. He shouldn't expect to put in so little effort. “Losing control,” he points out breathlessly, “isn’t something - that just _happens_ , Jack.”

Jack laughs, then looks up, spots the frown, and laughs harder. He doesn’t stop laughing when he kisses the Doctor again and the Doctor drinks down his laughter like sunlight, like the wine of eternal summer, licks it from his lips and sucks it from his tongue until it turns into something gloriously, joyfully bright and he holds onto his Captain as he cries out, lost in a blaze of gold.

As they catch their breaths, the man with a plan collapsed limply over the man who lives to ruin them, nose to his collarbone, Jack begins laughing softly again. It shakes them both; the Doctor grumbles halfheartedly. "That wasn't quite what I had intended," Jack admits, sliding down a bit to lay his cheek in the dip in the center of the Doctor’s chest as if it were made for him, “but I’m nothing if not flexible. Want me to keep going?”

Still feeling a bit hazy, the Doctor sighs. “You are -”

“Amazing? Gorgeous? A rampant sexy beast?”

“The absolute end, Captain.” He winds his fingers through Jack’s hair as he laughs again, just as soft but shadowed with pain.

“You really want me around all the time? I’m like this, you know.”

Recalled abruptly to the here and now by the wistful sadness in Jack’s voice, the Doctor looks down at the half-naked expanse of him, dark hair strewn across the Doctor's pale skin as he sprawls across his lap, vulnerable and brave and, yes, gorgeous, and for the first time wonders without anger about the others who have seen his Captain like this. Is there someone out there missing him right now? If Jack has ever loved any of them as he loved Barnable, the Doctor doesn't know it; he rarely speaks of his partners and never brings them home. That place is taken, even if empty now, and they will not invite another in. This is no TARDIS of uncountable rooms, of infinite possibility, of fresh starts and new days and bright futures like stars. This is Trenzalore, of snow and mud and darkness, and the monsters in the tower will steal no more children.

"Is it… is it very bad? Have I taken you from someone?"

“No,” Jack says, startled; he raises his head to meet the Doctor’s eyes. “No, that’s not… No, you haven’t. I’m all yours, Doc. But you know what I’m like. I’ll drive you mad.”

“Then I’ll tie you up and stand you in a corner,” the Doctor says, and smirks as Jack flushes. As if he hasn't learned a few things about managing his Captain over the centuries. “I want you to myself, and I want you to be happy, and if you think those can fit together I am willing to put in quite a lot of effort to make it so.”

“They can,” Jack promises, sliding lower. He paws the bedspread from under them as he goes, pushes it back, kicks his trousers off; grabs for his pants to clean away the mess between them. “Let me give you this, Doctor. Show me what you need, and let me give you everything.”

Someone who knows Jack less well might doubt him; the Doctor doesn’t, not for a second. “I’ll hurt you again,” he whispers, as Jack pulls the blankets up and settles between his splayed legs, arms heavy on his thighs, hands tucked around his back to cradle him with a vast and careful dignity.

“I know,” Jack says, letting his head lay like the heat of a long ago midday on the Doctor’s belly. “You said, earlier. I understand. But let the future worry about itself, Doctor. All it is is a lot of _now_ s, and this one is looking pretty good.”

“Flatterer,” the Doctor sighs, but he leans his head back against the pillows and doesn’t even try to hold back the moan as a tongue of purifying flame flickers over the length of his cock. It’s too much, too soon; he mewls in a pleasure nearly pain as Jack takes him, half hard, down to the root, then pulls away dragging teeth so lightly it sends shivering sparks up his spine. “Jack,” he whines, “gods, Jack…”

His Captain chuckles; the Doctor throws an arm over his eyes as his other hand finds soft hair, a curve of ear to settle behind. They might be here, he supposes, for a very long time.

-+-+-+-

 


	46. Time's unfolding

The tower is crumbling.

Not wholesale, of course, not catastrophically, waiting for the next storm to sweep it away; just bit by bit, worn away by the years of endless winter. Every time Jack leaves he trails his fingers along the wall and after so many years the spot he touches is worn smooth, indented with the slightest undulation. His fingers are the same as ever; it is the stone that succumbs to time.

But beside the stone, under and around it, is the mortar, and it crumbles at his touch. He wonders if the Doctor has noticed. He wonders if the Doctor has noticed the increasingly swaybacked steps leading up to the tower, worn away in the middle where they walk. He wonders if the Doctor has noticed that the edge where he rests his hands when he watches the sun is smooth and rounded. He wonders if the Doctor knows he rests his own hands there, sometimes, just to feel the impression left in the world, the ephemera of a life lived in geologic timescales.

He wonders if he will come back here, someday, chasing echoes long fallen silent.

He wonders if he should do as the Doctor wanted and leave before he finds out, but he knows he won’t.

It is the sixth time since Jack came that the mortar has needed repointing, and he is getting very good at it.

-+-+-

In five hundred years here, the Doctor has seen a lot of sunrises. A lot of sunsets, a lot of the creeping half-light of dusk and dawn, a lot of shadows that never grow smaller, only seep quickly back into Trenzalore’s encompassing gloom. He tries to see them all, of course, but it isn’t always possible. 

In the first couple centuries, when he was still a spry young chicken with a full complement of limbs, he had seen the sunrise from a great variety of places. Everyone had been too nervous to attempt to reach the surface at first, so he had had a great deal of freedom to get a feel for his new adopted home - and to deal with the Weeping Angels that had preceded him down. He had sunk most of them in a lake to the northwest whose surface only thaws every few years; by now it should be silted up sufficiently to keep them entombed for approximately the remainder of the planet’s existence. The mountains had taken up less of the sky, from there. He has seen the sunrise from all along the river, to as far upstream as the lake is down, where entire valleys never see sunlight. He has climbed a tree to see the sunrise in the forest, and has witnessed the sudden blotting out of the sky from the ground. He has seen the sunrise from the town square; he has seen it from Wrenshall. He saw it from the Mainframe, once.

Now he rarely travels, instead watching from the top of his tower as the darkness ebbs away like some ethereal tide, uncovering Christmas at its lowest extent before it rushes back in to drown them all again.

"We could go out," Jack says suddenly. "There's enough snow for the sleigh. Shame to have the same view every day when there's a whole world to see."

The Doctor always says _no_ when Jack makes these suggestions; he has often taken it as a cue to send Jack off by himself, to do as he wills. He suspects now that that interpretation was faulty, but then what _does_ he want? Unless he counts the visit to the Mainframe, and he doesn't, the Doctor hasn't left Christmas frivolously since… since Barnable was here to insist he come along. Jack knows what he is asking, surely.

Their breath makes clouds around them and the sky is lightening in the south as the Doctor leans against his lover in apology for his failure to answer. “Do you remember,” he says instead, “when Barnable got it in his head to go see the waterfall in full freeze? Burrowed so deep into all those blankets he made you bring I thought we’d left him behind for a minute.” It is Jack’s turn to not answer. He slowly goes rigid, and when the Doctor looks away from the light-limned mountains in concern he surprises a blank, inward look on his face, a dull panic beginning to rise off him in waves. “Oh, Jack -”

“No,” he whispers, stricken. He wraps his arms tight around himself, folds down over them as if protecting a wound. “No. I remember we went there, but not… the details.”

How does he go on, knowing this moment is always waiting? The Doctor almost asks, _do you remember -_ but realises in time that Jack is almost certainly flogging himself through a litany of the same, memory to memory to memory to, perhaps, a misty gap where he expected a strong foothold. So he waits, instead, his presence all he can offer. The silence between them has grown into a living thing lately, its eyes glinting in the neverending darkness, its breath stirring the hairs at the back of the neck. He can’t break it, will never break it; he has been broken by it. It will have to be Jack.

The sun is a sloshing fill of molten gold between the mountains when Jack sighs and sits straight again; he reaches over and takes the Doctor’s hand in his, weaves their fingers together firmly. “'Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding,'” he says quietly, like a mantra, like a pebble worn completely smooth by relentless friction. “'You don’t ever let go of the thread.'”

The Doctor recognises the quote, of course. He had been younger, then, and life had seemed so joyous for just a little while; and Jack had been so much younger, and in so much pain. Jack had thought the words unkind at the time, but they had not been meant so. The Doctor has always hurt him with his love. He will go on doing so, he supposes, for a very long time yet.

 _Good_ , Jack had said.

Just as if the Doctor had said, _I’ll love you again_ , and not, _I’ll hurt you again_. Jack knew _exactly_ what he was asking. Jack has always known. It's the Doctor who has been oblivious.

_Let me love you._

"Yes," the Doctor finds himself saying, "yes, let's." Jack cuts a startled glance at him, then looks back toward the light, face relaxing into relief. Time will always be taking memories from him, but Jack will always be making more. He holds the Doctor's hand tightly, and the Doctor watches the sunrise reflected in his eyes.

-+-+-

Time is unfolding around him, and he can't stop it. He has finally, truly, stayed too long, and the passing years have drained the desperate will to try. Jack still wants, will always want, the happily ever after he can never have, but failing that… failing that, he wants to take this burden from the Doctor, this heavy thing of despair that is somehow better to bear alone than inflict on his Captain.

He will never tell on his own; Jack understood that when the Doctor begged not to be made to, not yet. When he is ready, Jack must require it of him.

He is not ready, but every day he comes a little closer.

The Doctor, for his part, seems greatly relieved to leave the question in Jack's hands entirely. He seems willing to live with Jack in the moment, reaching out for new experiences, new memories, with abandon; his joy in the children seems renewed, his willingness to indulge Jack in all the pleasures of life a daily delight to them both. Less closed off, less controlled, he lives like the man Jack remembers and it is brilliant and heartbreaking in equal measure. Jack can't help but think he is hoarding it all up, life and light and love, in preparation of a coming winter deeper than any he has yet seen.

“The worst part,” the Doctor declares angrily, months or maybe years later, as he struggles out of his scarf and coat in an undignified jumble, “the _worst_ part, Jack, is the pears.”

“Rotten little buggers,” Jack says, well aware of the Doctor’s opinion on the matter - although he quite likes pears, himself. “Hold still.” The scarf has got in a knot, part of it caught under the Doctor’s chin, his yanking just making it worse. Untangling him carefully, Jack leans in to steal a chilly kiss, then slips the coat from his shoulders as well. “The worst part of what?"

"Trenzalore," the Doctor says darkly, stabbing his cane down as he stomps away. 

Jack pauses, hands still full of coat. He had been expecting something more like _lunch_ , maybe. Or _summer_.

"Can't imagine what I did to deserve the pears. Only fruit to eat for an entire month every year, stuck here for five hundred years, that's almost _forty two years of pears_ , Captain. And counting! Got to end up somewhere, I suppose, but why _here?_ "

Jack has no answer; Jack _wants_ no answer, to that question. But _want_ and _need_ are two very different beasts, and he needs it now, needs that silence cracked open and broken and gone so that there might finally be no distance of secrets between them.

Jack goes to stoke the fire; the Doctor stomps back to remove the boots he forgot. Jack puts the kettle on; the Doctor throws himself onto the sofa by the fire, then gets up to pace, complaining to himself. Jack lets him go, suspects a surprise attack will be the best way to rip it all open. By the time he has the tea steeping the Doctor has settled at a work table, soothing himself with the familiar detritus of this still, settled life he seems so resigned to.

The Doctor mumbles a _thank you_ when Jack sets his tea at his elbow, takes an absent sip. Perching on a chair to the side, Jack holds his own cup between his hands, takes a breath, and tries to calm his pounding heart so the Doctor doesn't hear it. "You keep saying that," Jack says as lightly as he can, "that you've _ended up here_. Like it's some kind of final sentence. Why?"

"Well it is, isn't it," his Time Lord says without looking up.

Jack finds he had been hoping his gambit would fail. Desperately disappointed, he closes his eyes for a moment, takes a careful breath. When he opens his eyes, the Doctor is staring at him, horrified. Just to ensure there is no going back, Jack asks gently, "It is, what?"

Maybe he doesn’t even want to go back; he just doesn’t want to go forward. Time, of course, offers no alternative. Defeated, the Doctor lets Jack draw from him the secret he has carried all these years. "A final sentence." He turns his face away but his eyes remain, taking in Jack's reaction. "This is Trenzalore, Jack. This is where the Doctor dies."

He says it like a historical fact; it's obvious he believes it. Jack doesn't. Someone is always predicting his death, and it never sticks, be it ever so convincing. “Haven't we done this before?”

Finally the Doctor turns to him fully. Backlit by the fire his hair seems a flickering halo of gold, but his anguished eyes hold nothing of that spark and Jack sighs as the memory passes. “There's no trick this time, Captain, no clever machinations to best. Only time and necessity, and in the end even a Time Lord bows to them. This is where I stand, and this is where I'll fall.”

The room seems to press in, the clutter that inevitably accumulates about the Doctor casting strange shadows, the walls too solid, too real, too final. Jack sets his tea down with hands nearly steady; the Doctor is watching him with the look of a man watching his home burn down and even if Jack doesn't believe him yet, the sheer desperate pain there is convincing on a level words can't reach. Can't very well argue with him, can he? _But I've met your next face_ would be a spoiler of the direst sort, in the circumstances. But neither can he leave that pain unanswered. Rising to his feet, Jack touches the Doctor's shoulder lightly; he almost expects him to turn away but he leans into it. Jack steps close, slips his hand up into thinning hair, pulls him in. Some of the tension leaves him at the touch, so that's something, at least.

"Why this time?" The Doctor looks up at him questioningly. "Why is this the time you can't beat it?"

“Ah. A Time Lord can regenerate twelve times.” He shifts forward, knees to either side of Jack's legs, presses against him and sighs. “I'm all out. This was always going to be my last face.”

“Well,” Jack says, and swallows, runs fingers gently through the Doctor's hair. Given the truth field, those statements are shockingly unambiguous. He is no longer certain it is the Doctor who is wrong. Never, then, maybe; never again for uncountable millenia will they catch up to each other, be to each other what they were so briefly, so long ago. Only here. Only now. “Let’s… we could just… Doctor, we could go and _come back_ , you don’t have to… She’s a time machine, no one would even notice -”

“Jack,” the Doctor says, face pressed to his jumper, hands curled loose behind his knees, “my Jack. If we left, could you let me come back?”

His voice is none too steady but it rocks Jack like a rogue wave. “No,” Jack whispers, the terrible truth of why the Doctor stays. He holds tighter, and does not let them be torn apart. “Alright. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.”

Leaning back, the Doctor takes his hands and looks up at him, eyes shadowed by this thing of secrets and silence that still paces between them, not yet banished. The love and regret on his face sets Jack's stomach twisting in sudden recognition: here it comes, then, the last secret, the worst spoiler. “You can't stay to the end, Jack. I'm sorry. I need you elsewhere. Asking far too much of you, one last time.”

 _You can't stay_. The words reverberate through the hollow space that wears Jack's skin. The Doctor is receding, slipping away from him much too soon, the room is closing in, the fire is suffocating, and he stumbles out into the cold darkness alone, desperate for somewhere to hide, somewhere he can forget the stink of the mud of this _grave_ they're living in. Blue doors and a quiet whisper of welcome, of shared misery, of the memory of faraway stars and alien worlds and outrunning time. 

-+-+-+-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Jack quotes from The Way It Is, by William Stafford, and refers to the events of[There's A Thread You Follow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17284856)._


	47. Mine to protect

The Doctor finds him there a little later, lying curled on his side, back pressed to the base of the console. His Captain and his TARDIS. In an attempt to give him some room to breathe, the Doctor had tried to drink his tea as he waited, but through no fault of Jack’s the bitterness of it was all he could taste. He had been wrong; not the news of his certain death that had proved too much for his stalwart Captain - after all, it is only the timing that is the surprise - but the news that he was not to be allowed to follow to the end the man who holds his heart.

“You have no right,” Jack says roughly, without looking at him.

“No,” the Doctor agrees.

“After everything. You have no right to send me away.”

“No.” He has never had a right to ask anything of Jack. And yet, over and over, he has asked everything, sometimes without the flimsiest of justification. This time will have to be different. The Doctor sits next to his Captain, next to his TARDIS. His beautiful girl, his third heart, who will be with him until the end where he can't permit Jack to accompany him. “I have no right whatsoever.”

“Stop it. I'm not going to talk myself into agreeing with you.”

Hesitantly, the Doctor reaches to stroke Jack’s hair. “I'm sorry. I meant it sincerely.”

“You meant it guiltily,” Jack corrects; but he rolls to lay his head in the Doctor’s lap, still not looking at him. “You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t think you had some right. You need me elsewhere, you said. This is… this is when I catch you up, then?”

The Doctor can tear his heart out and trample on it, but he can’t make Jack stupid. It’s one of the things he loves best about him. “Have you ever been to Bellacosa?”

“Once, I think,” he sighs. “Boring little place, but -”

“Restful,” the Doctor corrects; he tries not to sound defensive but Jack swings himself up to sit forward and examine his face in surprise. “Quiet. It’s - it’s beautiful, Jack, it’s just the sort of place you like, and I think… I think you were happy there, for a little while. Will be.”

“With you.”

The Doctor nods, throat gone tight. “With me.”

Jack looks away. “To be there for you then, I have to leave you now?”

Stomach dropping, the Doctor can barely bite back the distressed whimper. If not for that moment of carelessness - but too late to go back now. “Not _now_ ,” he begs. “Not… just yet.”

“Gods of mercy, Doctor,” Jack swears gently as he gathers the Time Lord into his arms. “You’re doing a piss poor job of convincing me, here.”

His laugh is more a relief of tension than genuine amusement. “I thought maybe you’d follow orders. But you don’t do that anymore, do you? You’ve outgrown me.”

“No, no,” Jack soothes, breath warm in the Doctor’s hair, strong arms holding him safe and secure; and for all Jack’s denials, the Doctor knows he is correct. “I’ll follow orders. But explain it to me, please.”

Now he is asking for comfort on top of everything else, the Doctor realises; but he can’t bring himself to stop, to get up or even to lean away from Jack’s furnace heat. His forehead lays smouldering against the softness of Jack’s cheek and if he never had to move again, he would be content. “I needed you, I’ll need you, like this, Jack. So much older and wiser, able to see through me so easily. And still… still present, still invested in my future, our future. I need to still be alive to you.”

Jack rocks him gently, holds him tight, tight. “But how will I protect you if I’m not here?” he says, voice catching, a pained plea to the current of Time they have been swept up in.

“You can’t,” the Doctor whispers, and they sit together in silence there, listening to the TARDIS sing of home and time and endings. It creeps into the Doctor's mind that there is some chance it will drive him mad, Jack being gone; to have to make his way alone to the end of his timeline after so long lived in the breakwater of Jack’s fixed point.

“If I’m not here,” Jack says finally, “then _that’s why you die_ , Doctor.”

“I'll die here because I won’t leave here, Jack. It's not your fault. All of us mortals, we all run down eventually.”

Growling in frustration, Jack pushes him away only to grab his arms and shake him. “You won’t leave because you think you die here!”

“It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it,” the Doctor agrees, feeling the shaking well enough deserved. “Still, I won’t abandon my people, Captain. Regardless of other considerations. I was the one who turned a puzzle into a threat, and I am the only one who can turn the threat into reality. This world is mine to protect.”

" _You_ are _mine_ to protect!" It comes out a heartbroken howl; Jack's eyes go wide and startled, and he drops the Doctor's arms as if burned and turns away, slumping against the base of the console. " _Mine_."

“Yours always,” the Doctor agrees, throat tight. “My Captain. But I need you more, elsewhere.”

“Your Captain,” Jack repeats bitterly. He flops to the floor as if gravity is just too much, right now. The Doctor winces as his head cracks down but Jack doesn’t so much as blink. “All that time, wondering what I did wrong. All the time here, waiting to catch up. Classic case of getting what you wish for. I’d rather stay your cabin boy.”

But the Doctor knows him too well to believe that. “Did you think it would be easy?”

Jack takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “No,” he says quietly, “no. I suppose not. Near to broke me last time.” Suddenly more worried, he sucks another breath in through his teeth, rolls his head to eye the Doctor. “Doctor… just what is it I’m meant to _do_ on Bellacosa?”

“You’ll have a little house,” the Doctor says quietly. “A view of the sky.” So much of surviving the last five hundred years was forgetting the life before, trying to hold tight to himself but bury the need to go. The time on Bellacosa was one of the rare bits of memory he could rely on to help him learn stillness; he hasn’t forgotten. Jack had been brilliant, but he had also been well prepared. "You'll need to remember," the Doctor says apologetically; then he takes a deep breath and reaches up to the console. “And you’ll need these.”

Propping himself up on his elbows to follow the Doctor’s motion, Jack freezes at the sight of the cuffs in his hand. “I don’t… think I understand,” he says warily. He doesn’t reach for them. 

“They’ll respond to you, now.” Jack looks _more_ upset at this, shaking his head in denial, and the Doctor sets them back on the console. “Not at first, but… keep them around. I wasn't well, Jack, once I started thinking about everything I'd done, I started wondering why you'd even let me live.”

Jack's lips are pressed together, white-ringed, but at this a startled bark of laughter escapes. “As if I go around _letting_ you do things.”

“I know. Never asked you again, have I?” The Doctor smiles hopefully at his lover, but that thousand-mile stare is not improved.

In one economically fluid motion Jack rolls himself to his feet. “I was _happy_ there?” There is an edge of desperation in his voice.

“After that part,” the Doctor acknowledges, somewhat guiltily. “Maybe before it, too. I’m sorry, Jack.”

“You’re _sorry_.” He reaches a hand down to offer the Doctor help up without thought, and the Doctor takes it, resenting that he appreciates it, that Jack offers it regardless of how he feels about the Doctor at the moment. As soon as he is up Jack walks away from him and stands, arms crossed, at the railing. He wouldn't have preferred being left to struggle up from the floor on his own, it's just… unexpectedly humbling. “You’re always _sorry_ , and it’s never about the right things.”

“Then tell me what to be sorry for.”

Jack whirls to face him, finger stabbing out to point at the cuffs on the console. “Do you not see how cruel this is? Are you really that dense?”

“Yes, I am really that dense!” the Doctor yells back, stabbing his cane into the floor in frustration. “Have you met me?”

His Captain heaves a great sigh, leans back against the railing. He scrubs his hands over his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I have. And don’t think I’ve forgotten the truth field doesn’t work in here, either. Doctor… if this is another attempt to get me to do your dirty work for you, telling me just enough that I leave without you having to finish the job…”

Stung by the accusation, and trying not to think about the implication that Jack is upset enough to consider walking away, the Doctor scowls fiercely. Surely his hearts are on the line here just as much as Jack’s? “I’m not trying to be cruel, I’m trying to answer your questions. I didn’t want to tell you I’ll _die_ here, Jack, after what it did to you thinking I was dead in the teleporter - I thought you’d take it harder.”

“Oh, I’m taking it hard.” He laughs; it’s not a pretty sound. “It’s just you keep making it worse, and I can’t keep up.”

“You wanted my secrets,” the Doctor says bitterly, cursing Time for having finally come to this day. Always hurting Jack, no matter his intentions. Always loving Jack, no matter how he fails to show it. “May they bring you more joy than they’ve brought me. I’ve nothing left to hide. If I just wanted to make you leave, I wouldn’t drag us both through this first.”

Jack pushes himself upright abruptly, tension a fine edge under his skin. “You want to be in charge?” He is rolling up the sleeves of his jumper with angry motions. “You want to tell me all this, and then expect me to stay and comfort you until you’re ready to order me away?” As he unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt, he steps forward; the Doctor falls back, aware of having misstepped terribly somehow.

“I don’t - what do you _want_ from me, Jack -?” but then Jack is at the console, holding the cuffs out toward him bare-wristed.

“Let me wear your cuffs again.”

The Doctor recoils in surprise, stumbles back against the railing. “I _can't_ , Jack, please -” He must be, the Doctor concludes as he stares numbly at the scraps of leather upon which Jack has hung so many hopes, almost unimaginably dense, to not have expected this. The neutron star of lovers. He had fooled himself into thinking that because the cuffs had not been what hurt his future Jack, they would not hurt him so now; but the one doesn’t imply the other at all.

“You want me to follow orders? Claim me. Give me this, Doctor. Just for a little while, let me be yours one more time.” Open and beseeching, Jack is hiding nothing now, but he can't, he _can't_. How could he take up that responsibility again, how could he ever _let Jack go_ …?

As he fails to answer, as his head begins to shake in denial, he can see Jack's heart break, can practically hear the _crack_ so clearly is it written on his face. Jack sets the cuffs down carefully and backs away, opens his mouth, closes it again, and flees.

The Doctor sinks into the seat next to him, drops his face to his hands, and tries not to wish himself straight to the end.

When he returns to the tower Jack is sitting on the bed with a full rucksack over one shoulder. “I’m,” he says, and stops. “I need.” He takes a breath, ruffles his hair, and the Doctor waits silently, icy claws of dread slowly tearing his hearts apart. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… I need some space.” Everything is falling apart in his hands, everything he has built here falling to pieces. Maybe the despair shows through - it must do - because Jack throws himself to his feet, is there before him, reaching to cradle his face between warm hands. “I’ll come back. Doctor, _I will come back_. It was wrong of me, to say that. There’s nothing you need to do to make me stay. You’re going to have a terrible time making me _leave_. I just… need to go think, for a little bit. Do you need me to wait?”

 _Not leaving, he’ll come back._ The opposite of those dreams of falling, he has stepped into nothingness and found himself caught. From a single comment the day went so horribly awry; if he could go back and erase today, he would. But Jack isn’t leaving, not yet, even if he will have to eventually. The Doctor swallows, meets his lover’s concerned eyes. How easy it is to hurt each other, still. “No. It’s alright, Jack, I’ll be alright. Will you?”

Closing his eyes, Jack leans in and kisses him gently. “Yes,” he says, refraining from any more sarcastic remark. “I’ll be alright. I’ll be back. Don’t forget to eat. Put the screen on the fire.”

“I’m not going to burn the house down, Jack,” the Doctor says, too overwhelmed to be more than mildly exasperated.

“I know,” Jack concedes. “I love you.” He smiles lopsidedly, and shrugs, and trots away to the solace of solitude, leaving the Doctor alone in the silence.

-+-+-+-

 


	48. Don't ever let go

_Did you think it would be easy?_

He had wanted to know, hadn't he? Had thought it couldn't be worse than waiting, imagining possibilities. Had thought it would be worth it, to finally close that distance between them. But he should never have let himself forget that whatever it is the Doctor will require from him to earn that bone-deep, unquestioning trust back, it will be one of the hardest things Jack has ever done.

Jack had guessed at the ultimate failure of this long stand, in general, although he could not have guessed the Doctor's certainty of his final death. Perhaps it has been _Jack_ in possession of the biggest spoiler ever, all this time. All that practice holding on to impossible hope will serve him well.

But he hadn't expected the cuffs. The cuffs were _not fair_.

He has thought about them so many times, wanted them, asked for them more than once over the years - but he should have bitten his own tongue out before asking for them again, now. He should have. Not given in to the little voice that said, _what if he's right, what if this is your last chance, ever?_ Someday, maybe, things will be right between them again; someday, maybe, they can leave behind secrets, and guilt, and pain, and death, and live again for a little while in the trust that has brought them through it all. But it won’t be here, in the churned mud of the world the Doctor entrenches himself ever more firmly in, marching to a death he thinks inevitable. Leaving Jack behind, going where he cannot follow, even if it is Jack who will have to do the leaving.

Jack doesn’t think River was right all the time; thinks she didn’t give the Doctor enough credit, often. He is stronger than he looks. But sometimes, when it is the Doctor’s nature itself that is the cause of the pain, Jack knows she was right.

_Never let him see you cry._

So he saves his tears for the dark and the cold, reminds himself that the cuffs are proof of nothing, one way or another; and certainly they are not protection. There is no safety from what's coming. He doesn’t believe it’s the end, he _doesn’t_ believe and he _won’t_ believe, but if it is - if it is, if he goes, then he will come back. Even if he has to throw himself from orbit every time, become the man who burned like a star. It's only living up to what the Doctor says of him, isn't it?

And when the night has finished freezing his tears to his cheeks and swallowing his anger, when he has coaxed back to restive slumber the part of him still crying for his cuffs, when he feels strong enough to help bear the burden of the Doctor’s truth again, Jack turns homeward, because he has his own rule to follow: _you don’t ever let go of the thread._

-+-+-

The cuffs sit on the kitchen table, accusatory in their very existence; the Doctor catches himself edging around them to make his tea as if they were some sort of proximity-activated explosive. "Ridiculous," he scoffs, tugs at his waistcoat as he stands straight, fusses with his bowtie. "He shouldn't have asked it of me." He sweeps them back into his pocket so he doesn't have to look at them, but then they follow him around. He has missed the sunrise, and he misses his sun, and he is restless.

At bedtime he empties his pockets and they seem to stare at him, accusing again, from the dressing table. He hadn’t known Jack still wanted them so badly. He hadn’t known he was still so afraid of them. "Ought to have left you in the TARDIS," he tells them. "If Jack comes home and sees you there…" It will be another blow to his fractured heart if they don't come with an offer.

But he doesn't put them away.

He wakes in the morning, alone, and stares at them morosely. "I shouldn't have asked it of him," he says, and knows he has finally reached truth. "I wish I didn't have to. I don't _want_ to hurt him." But he knows what Jack's answer would be. _Never stop_. He puts them in his pocket again when he gets dressed, because there is still time to try. Had he thought it would be easy?

Jack doesn’t come home that day, and the Doctor resigns himself to full pockets and waiting. He has the middle group of children the next day, ten to twelve year olds, which is a large group just now; they keep him on what toes he can spare. Jack is reassuringly nearby, shining there in the middle distance, not gone too far in the night. Resolutely setting _later_ out of his mind, the Doctor attempts to concentrate on the wildly varied and creative ideas the children are hatching on topics vaguely relating to the ongoing problem of pears. He tries to steer them into more testable approaches, as long as they don’t involve him having to eat the experiments. He raises the question every few years and someone is always certain they will finally be the one to make pears either palatable or undetectable to the Doctor, and he never enjoys the experience. What must be decades ago now, one clever child did manage to more or less freeze-dry apples, which effort was commendable if odd in texture. Lacking that, it’s preserves or dreadful pears for the month before the apples come ripe.

Results or not, it keeps the children busy and thinking. Science and stories and the sky and what lies beyond it are his domains, here on Trenzalore; which is very nearly everything that matters, as far as he can tell.

Distracted himself by the redirections necessary when working with children - “She is certainly a very clever mouse, Benet, but I doubt she can help much except to eat the pears so I don’t have to,” - and lulled to a sense of comfort by the ease with which Jack’s fixed point moves through this world that has been quite literally built around him, the Doctor is uncharacteristically caught by surprise. It is a ripple among the children that he notices first, a whispering quiet that flows past him; he hears _Captain, it’s the Captain_ , and then there is the answering faint ripple in the world that always attends Jack’s movements and the fire of his favourite Fact bursts upon him like a sudden sunrise. Wide-eyed, he looks up and meets Jack’s eyes over the children’s heads.

“Excuse me,” the Doctor says quietly, passing the very patient mouse carefully back into its owner’s hands, “I’ll be right back,” and the children part before him as he is drawn back into orbit.

Jack looks him over - for what, the Doctor is not sure, but he seems satisfied - then he takes a breath and his face settles into stern lines, golden fire a faint aura about him. “Tell me I have to go.”

He wants to hear the Doctor say it where he cannot lie. The Doctor swallows, knows he could no more lie to his Captain like this than tear off his own arm, truth field or no. “I need you to go,” he says carefully, the only truth he knows for sure, “before the end.” Ultimately, it is Jack’s choice whether a thing the Doctor needs is a thing he has to do. It has been, in the past; it may not always be so.

Jack sighs, and the fire retreats, the stern lines of his face relax into something older, worn down. He lays his hand against the Doctor’s cheek gently, and the Doctor leans into the steadiness that only gets deeper as time bears everything else away. “I’ll go,” he agrees. “But not yet.” The relief, both for his agreement and for the stay of sentence, is crushing; the Doctor sways under its weight. Stepping forward, Jack tugs his forehead to his shoulder, holds him up, holds him close. “That may have been a bit single-minded of me,” he murmurs. “The audience was unexpected.”

The Doctor chokes on a startled laugh. “Won’t be keeping that a secret,” he agrees.

“Just as well,” Jack says, quietly fervent. “Had enough of that.” He shifts a bit, tucking the Doctor against his side, and looks around. “Hey, you lot. Miss me?”

“Nope,” says one of the worst wiseacres immediately; but she is grinning, when the Doctor looks around with an incipient scowl.

“Well, good, I didn’t miss you either,” Jack says, half smile tilting his lips. “What are you working on?” And somehow the world that has been limping along is once more spinning properly, everything as it should be with Jack back at his side. He will leave; but not yet.

Loathe to give up his warmth just yet, the Doctor leans against his guiding light as they listen to the children. "You can't tell me it isn't worth it," he says quietly.

Jack certainly is hardened enough to run that calculus, right up until he inevitably becomes too attached to the bit that's meant to be sacrificed. Patron saint of doomed efforts and lost causes, is Jack; or why would he love the Doctor so? "No," he agrees, reluctantly; hardened enough also, and strong enough, to be relied upon to make the sacrifice in the end. "What you've made here, Doctor… it's worth it. I just… I wish."

He looks so beautiful there, all the beloved angles of his face reflecting the light of the square, an eternal flame lit against the ever increasing dark. The Doctor turns a little in his arms, and as Jack looks at him he leans in to catch his Captain’s lips in a kiss he hopes says more than words. Fleeting happiness; there is still time for that. "So do I."

-+-+-

The Doctor has hardly left Jack's sight all day since he came back, not insisting on touching but occasionally looking up in a startled way only to soften to relief when his eyes land on his Captain. The way he flushes when Jack catches him at it is disarmingly adorable and has a lot to do with Jack's easy grin when the Doctor asks him to come sit with him by the fire after he finishes the washing up.

"All yours, love," Jack announces, flopping down on the sofa, head in his lover's lap - only to throw himself back upright and halfway to the floor when he sees the cuff stretched open across the Doctor's hand. "What," he says, and stops. Wrenching his eyes up to the Doctor's solemn face, he slides all the way off the sofa, not incidentally putting a little extra space between them. "You don't have to do this."

“I know,” the Doctor says, which is a relief. Jack settles, willing to listen. “I reacted badly, and I hurt you again, and I’m sorry.”

“I didn't handle it so well myself. Don’t offer this as an apology.”

Shaking his head, the Doctor looks very stubborn as he says, “I _want_ to do this for you. I want to try to be what you need. I’m not sure I can, Jack, but I’ll try.” It is obvious he has been rehearsing; it all comes out smoothly until he swallows nervously and adds, “If you want.”

“I want,” Jack assures him wistfully. “But not if it will hurt you.”

Brow furrowing in pained consideration, the Doctor says, “Why are you the one who gets to choose not to hurt?”

“I’m not,” Jack points out, laying a hand over his lover’s, skin to skin. The outright pain of it is much less than it has been in the past, he knows, but he still feels like fire to the Time Lord. “I’ve never had that choice. Only the choice to try not to hurt you _more_.”

The Doctor’s eyes go wide, then slowly wider as he stares at Jack. His right hand comes to cover Jack’s, holding it in place. “Never stop,” he says then, and the wonder in his voice is great and terrible, and Jack trembles.

Finding his throat too tight to answer, he instead shuffles forward to kneel between the Doctor’s feet and lean against him, very nearly Jack’s favourite place to be in all the world. _I never will_ , he promises silently, and hopes the Doctor heard. Those long fingers that know every part of him, every reaction, every shiver, drift through his hair, across his cheekbone, down the line of his neck, touching everywhere they can in a slow remapping.

“They’ll still respond to you,” the Doctor says, after a while. “Please don’t change that. I can’t bear to… to go that far. Will you take them off, sometimes, or let me?”

“If that’s what you want,” Jack agrees easily. He sits back to pull his jumper off, shrug out of his braces, unbutton his shirt. “It doesn’t have to be anything more than you want. It never has to intersect with sex or any other part of life at all, if you don’t want. Just let me wear them, let me kneel at your side. Let me know that I’m yours, that’s all I need, Doctor.”

The Doctor watches him, bemused smile twisting his lips. “Some part of this requires substantial loss of clothing?”

“Inspection?” Jack suggests with a grin. The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Given the choice, this is how I’d like to begin.” Back straight, he re-settles himself on his knees between his lover’s feet, lays his bare wrists on the Doctor’s thighs. “All yours, love,” he says, meaning it in a much broader sense than the last time. 

Cool fingers draw sparks against the skin of his left wrist as the Doctor wraps a cuff around, seals it seamlessly; takes up his right wrist and encases it as well in smooth leather. "My Jack," the Doctor whispers, his dark eyes watching intently as the cuffs adjust, as Jack relaxes into the soft, even pressure he has missed for so long, that he still feels in his dreams sometimes and wakes scraped empty with longing for, only poorly approximated by what restraints the Doctor has allowed. “Shh, it’s alright now, Captain, I’ll take care of you,” the Doctor murmurs; Jack can feel him touching his cheeks, wiping away the tears of sheer harrowing _relief_ that Jack has no control over whatsoever. His hands slide up Jack’s arms, tug lightly to bring him up to lean against soft wool that smells of smoke and iron, storm winds and time. Jack breathes, and as he makes his way into that empty place between expansive contentment and the verge of tears the Doctor holds him tight and tighter, as if taking possession of what Jack is laying down. Taking possession of Jack.

-+-+-

Lord of Time he might be, but the Doctor can no longer imagine himself a capable object of devotion for the being Jack is becoming, whose veins run with Time, who burns with the fires of creation. His eternity spills out around them like a fountain, like the birth of an island, consuming and remaking, and the Doctor is no longer strong enough to stand before it. It sweeps him away, until all he can do is anchor himself at the deep still centre and hold on. Jack doesn’t seem to notice his faltering. Even as he struggles to regain his footing, the Doctor is relieved; he couldn’t bear, now, seeing how deeply Jack _needs_ to feel claimed, to tell him he had been wrong. That he cannot carry this responsibility.

Above all, he cannot ask for the cuffs back, because they are no longer his.

So he struggles on, and pretends he is still the man Jack wants him to be, and if it is the best he can do… maybe it will be enough. It is easier when he focuses on the _Jack needs_ aspect of it instead of the intimation of control, of _ownership_ , that their shared history makes the Doctor so acutely uncomfortable with. Although it is more clear now than ever before that what of Jack he has possessed has always been given over freely, the Doctor serving as custodian only at his will, by his grace, in his trust, the cuffs are a reminder of every way he has ever misused that remarkable love. Of how very easy it is to slip down the slope to abuse. There are easy things, and there are right things, and there are good things, and there are kind things, and he isn’t sure where this falls except that it is not easy. He is almost certain it is kind, and that seems good enough, most days.

Jack is careful of him in turn, asking little more than to be allowed that constant reassurance, and as the days and years go by the weight seems to wear away and life passes with a growing simplicity, a linearity, that lets the Doctor sink into the flow of it. All things breathe, and live, and come to an end, and do not come again. For the Doctor, there will be no new companions, no new loves, nothing but the slow close of brackets as the problem of his life finally draws near a solution. Here in the long slide to the end, there is living to do, always living, but it is a charmingly simple sort. It has a great deal of love in it.

-+-+-+-

 


	49. Motionless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _CW: explicit consensual rough sex, biting and blood and pain._

Once Jack has agreed to leave, the Doctor seems content; in this instance, Jack understands, his wants and the necessities forced on him by events are far removed from each other. _Soon_ , they promise each other every now and then, sincere but unverifiable; but _soon_ is never _now_ , and meanwhile life achieves a surprisingly pleasant plateau. Neither of them realise how much time has passed in this liminal state of _not gone yet_ until Jack decides he's finally had enough of the mangled mess of knots and half-pulled, half-felted stitches that he has been wearing as a hat for far too long. What use a new one, when he is leaving? But one day it's just too bad to even put on.

So he suffers a cold head for a couple days, and knits a new one. When he wears it out, every blasted person he passes grins at him and compliments it; he finds it rather baffling as it’s nothing special, double layered plain grey wool. Everyone else has a hat just like it, more or less. With a cursory knock, he steps into the laundry.

“Won’t be a moment, Captain!” Gwinet calls from the back. She steps out, wiping ink-stained hands on a wet rag, and laughs. “I’m pleased to see you finally retired the old mop.”

Pulling his hat off, Jack eyes it dubiously. “It’s just a hat. People get new hats all the time. Why is everyone making such a big deal of it?”

“ _People_ might, but you don’t. It’s all my life you’ve been patching that poor old thing because you’ll be leaving soon. Bit of a running joke, really, ah. Don’t be cross, please.” She grins up at him impishly, and he vividly recalls her as a small child - or someone who looks like her at any rate, all big eyes and wild hair - with no idea of how many years have passed since.

Jack smiles. “Am I ever? Cross at what?”

“There may be a few people crowing at the pub tonight, someone started a pool years ago whether you’d replace the hat or leave when it fell to shreds.”

“I… see.” Far from cross, he is probably much more amused than he should be. “Leaving before then never seemed like a good bet to anyone, eh?”

Gwinet laughs. “Not as I understand it, no. Will you be leaving as well, then, and throw them all into disarray?”

Jack shrugs, no more willing to answer that than ever. “Soon. I expect. But not today. Today I need the laundry.” He’ll have to arrange for someone to bring the Doctor’s laundry by when he’s gone.

“Jen’s done a bit of mending, she says to remind the Doctor to mind the embers.” 

Nodding gratefully, Jack takes the bag. “I will. Thanks, and my best to your lovely wife.” He throws it over his shoulder and strolls home, entertained by the occasional looks of glee or cheerful resignation that accompany the compliments on his new hat. It is reassuring, at least, that no one seems to be disappointed at his failure to leave. Even if he will, eventually.

“Honey, I’m home!” he calls, closing the door.

“No need to yell,” the Doctor complains, and Jack smiles as he takes off his boots and goes to put the laundry away. 

When he is done, he sets the kettle to boil and goes to the Doctor. “How's your day, love?”

“Come and see.” Peering over his shoulder, Jack considers the mess of containers, dishes, parts, pieces, and fluff spread out over the table. “Showing promise at last.”

Using a delicate set of forceps, Jack picks up a piece of fluff sitting in a dish and sniffs it warily. “Ah. Your guncotton. Need a bit more flash-bang in your life?”

Smiling, the Doctor shakes his head. “The pyrotechnics here are pretty good, really, with everyone topside so keen to help. But sometimes you just want to detonate your own dust bomb, instead of standing around waiting for people to blow themselves up.”

“True enough,” Jack laughs. “More efficient.”

“Shouldn't wonder if things pick up again soon, I suppose. It's been a while. Tasha says there's been some reinforcements in again.” 

Making a face, Jack rubs the Doctor's shoulders briefly and goes to get the whistling kettle. “No chance they'll all just get bored and leave,” he mutters. The Doctor laughs; Jack still sometimes forgets how good his hearing is.

“No chance,” he agrees, then asks hopefully, “Is it supper soon? I think I forgot my tea.”

“It is if you want it to be.” Feeling unusually cheerful, Jack brings him tea with one of the little sugared plum cakes he shamelessly begged hot from Arlen’s windowsill and goes about fixing supper for two with a spring in his step. The mood lingers, and by the time the Doctor burrows into bed next to Jack he seems to have settled on bemusement at Jack’s unusual cheer. 

“What’s got into you?”

Pulling his lover close, Jack laughs, buries his nose in hair gone sillier, if less floppy, with time. “Had a funny day, is all. Everyone was commenting on my hat. Apparently it’s been the object of considerable speculation. Must not be enough excitement around here.”

The Doctor snorts softly against his shoulder. “The old one was a disgrace. I’m sure it was quite exciting to see a hat on your head instead of something even the birds turn up their beaks at.”

Jack grins. “This is one of your squirrely attempts to compliment me, isn’t it. Good looking head like mine, ought to have a good looking hat?”

“If you like.” With a put-upon sigh, the Doctor snuggles in closer; Jack is sure he rolled his eyes as well.

“I like.” He kisses the Doctor’s forehead, smoothes a hand up and down his back. “Gwinet said I’ve been mending the old one all her life, and I realised, I don’t have the first idea how long that is, anymore.”

“I should think so, it’s been… erm.” The Doctor takes a deliberate breath. “Do you want to know how long?”

Laughing, Jack says, in a tone of mock-horror, “Not if you’re going to ask like _that_.” The Doctor’s cool breath puffs into his shirt as he laughs as well, and then his hand is creeping up under the shirt and the tip of his tongue is shivery on Jack’s neck, drifting up toward his ear. “And not if I could be doing this instead,” Jack says happily, turning to catch his lips.

Humming contentedly as Jack’s tongue invades his mouth, the Doctor presses close, then pulls away to prop himself up on an elbow. He looks down at Jack, timeless in the steady lamp light, the lines of his face still strong after so long. He calls himself an old man, sometimes, but he only ever looks like himself to Jack, only looks like the man Jack has spent a thousand years with, and without, on-again-off-again in a mad, unpredictable dance. “I want to watch you,” he murmurs, gaze flicking over Jack’s face, fingers brushing his chest, circling a nipple.

“Mm. Watch me what?” Jack asks, half in encouragement and half because he has already begun a soft descent into that place where thoughts are muffled and slow.

Somewhat unusually, the Doctor answers. “Watch you lose yourself,” he says, voice low and mesmerising. “Watch you give yourself up to me.” Jack moans as the Doctor wedges right leg between his thighs, pushes them apart; he can feel his cock hardening beneath the pressure. “Watch you lose control.”

“Yours for the asking, love,” Jack mumbles, head full of stars as the Doctor pushes his chin up, bites gently at his throat. “Any day, any time, take me down, I’ll be your canvas, work your magic on me…”

“You’re mixing metaphors,” the Doctor points out, then his tongue is in Jack’s ear and Jack shudders, gives a needy whine.

“I don’t know what I’m saying at all. _Yes_ ,” he hisses, bucking up against the Doctor’s leg as he pinches his nipple.

With a dark, hungry laugh, the Doctor gives the nipple a vicious twist and Jack cries out, eyes falling closed as his hips buck again. “Open your eyes,” the Doctor orders, and Jack does, although nothing is in focus at first. “I want to see everything. Take your shirt off.” His right arm is trapped under the Doctor, who doesn’t move, but Jack unbuttons his shirt one handed and attempts awkwardly to get his free arm out of the loose sleeve. The Doctor smirks as he holds the end for him. “You look good like that, trapped and taking orders.”

“I always look good,” Jack says, breathing deeply as the Doctor wraps a hand tight about his cuff. He wears them more for his own comfort than anything else, anymore, takes them off for a while any time he notices the Doctor shying from their presence. Only rarely does the Doctor choose to invoke them in any way during sex and every time it’s electrifying, a jolt of pure dopamine that leaves Jack muzzy and wanting. Expecting his hand to be pushed down to the bed, Jack is surprised when instead the Doctor raises it to his mouth, traces the lines of Jack’s palm with his tongue so delicately it tickles. 

The Doctor laughs as he watches Jack shiver; his breath blows cold over the lines of moisture. “Your banter gets less witty the more aroused you are, you know. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to be quiet now?” Slowly, he licks each of Jack’s fingers.

“Not trying to impress you,” Jack points out, trying to at least make sense. “You wanted - haaa -” Something between a sigh and a moan escapes him as the Doctor slides his lips over his finger, hand still tight on his wrist. 

He takes it all the way in, then to Jack's disappointment lets it slip out of his mouth and says, in a slight singsong, “Open your eyes, Jack.” Hips rocking against his lover's thigh, Jack opens his eyes to the Doctor's bedeviling smile as he sucks the tips of two of Jack's fingers into his mouth. Humming in a very self-satisfied way, the Doctor licks and rubs and sucks and Jack watches, wide-eyed and lightheaded as his fingers disappear very, very slowly into that clever mouth.

Jack pushes against the Doctor's grip. “Please,” he begs, “more?”

“Hmmmm,” the Doctor says, drawing it out for Jack to fully appreciate the vibrations; belatedly he realises the Doctor is also drawing away from his hand. “No.”

“But -! Please?” The Doctor laughs at him, pushes his hand down to the bed beside his head as he leans down to kiss him, far too briefly. “Aw, come back,” Jack whines in protest as he pulls away, but the tip of his tongue is tracing along Jack’s jaw and his thumb is massaging Jack’s wrist in long, firm strokes and he is thrusting languidly against Jack’s hip, clearly settling in to drive him into erotic madness.

“Beg, by all means,” the Doctor murmurs between sharp nips, making his way up to lick Jack’s ear. He shifts more of his weight to Jack’s chest, his arm and wrist, pinning him to the bed. Jack whimpers, eyes open but unable to see anything going on; it just adds to the intensity. “Curse me, if you want. Recite poetry, or scream my name, or howl, if you feel like it. Captain, I want you to let me take you _apart_.” Suddenly feeling very much like a lion trainer forcibly reminded that his darlings are far from _tame_ , Jack lies very still as the Doctor raises his head, as that predatory gaze seems to set his skin alight where it pauses. Meeting his hungry eyes, Jack smiles, tilts his head back, and gives himself away.

A growl so low as to be subconscious suddenly blooms into Jack’s awareness, shakes him everywhere the Doctor lays against him; jaws close on his throat and he can’t stop the terrified whine as his brain freezes in the momentary conviction that he will die with the toss of a powerful head. But the teeth press hard enough to bruise, and no harder, holding Jack there at the singularity between freeze and flight, between fuck and fight, adrenaline driving his heart to wild acrobatics.

The Doctor moves not at all except to take a slow, deep breath through his nose, but nonetheless something brushes against Jack, spilling him uncontrolled down from that precarious perch and he is rutting desperately against the hard thigh pinning him down, cock awkwardly confined but he can’t consider stopping. Eyes open, world going dark at the edges, Jack is driven forward in pursuit of an orgasm that feels like an itch he can’t scratch until it blooms like a fireball, rocking him with a soundless explosion. He gasps for breath when the jaws release. Then the weight is gone, his pajama bottoms being dragged off; Jack groans in relief as his cock is freed from where it had been trapped against his leg.

“I’m going to hurt you,” the Doctor says, far too regretful to sound threatening.

Raising an unsteady hand to cup his cheek, Jack assures him, “It’s alright. Whatever you need.” Eyes closed, the Doctor makes a soft, broken noise and turns his head to kiss Jack’s palm like a promise, and then cool hands are sliding up the inside of his thighs and Jack moans and lets his legs fall open to make a place for his needy Time Lord.

The moan turns into something very different when the Doctor’s mouth comes down over him. Jack curls up in startled reflex, pushes at his lover’s head as he sucks hard but that’s a mistake because then the teeth come out, sharp as a crown of thorns on his oversensitised cock. Just as Jack gets his feet beneath him to try to push himself away the Doctor’s eyes meet his, wild in a way he has rarely seen, and fingers push roughly into his arse.

Jack makes noises, but none of them are words.

“Watch,” the Doctor insists, “I want you to watch me,” and Jack may have lost the plot completely but he still follows orders from the Doctor. Elbows propped behind him, bruised throat the least of his problems, Jack watches wide-eyed and open-throated as the Doctor researches just _how many_ nerves he has to be toyed with, overworked, overwhelmed, brought to a crashing crescendo where he can’t tell pain from pleasure. He writhes, and regrets it, when the Doctor makes a line of bite marks down the underside of his cock; he tries very, very hard to stay still whilst his balls are held hostage behind the Doctor’s teeth, and regrets that as well, because the Doctor in return tries very, very hard to make him move. He can’t throw his head back, he can’t close his eyes, but he screams, he begs, he shakes with convulsive tremors. He comes, and comes again at the Doctor’s command, and he isn’t sure he has another one in him but he is sure he will find out. He pulls away helplessly from the relentless, unpredictable torment of fingers stretching him, pressing, rubbing, _scraping_ against his prostate, but the Doctor pulls him back, holds him in place as he arches and howls. He begs for respite even though he can see the Doctor's smile like the gleam of a blade, even though he can feel the Doctor's whipcord fingers cinch tighter around him every time as he laps at Jack's swollen, leaking cock, because every time the Doctor says _no_ , another measure of peace edges out the strange desperation in his eyes.

As he takes Jack apart, they watch each other; those ancient eyes flicker up to Jack’s to make sure he is still paying attention, lips twitching up in approval when Jack never fails him. When his mouth is not occupied, the Doctor uses it for words, words that make no sense but flare bright as stars, pinned firm against the dark backdrop of Jack's mind. “You’ll always have this, Jack,” he murmurs, lips cool against feverish skin. “I can’t change the ending, but you’ll know. I’ll write it on your skin for eternity.”

He bites hard, slowly moving up the inside of Jack’s left thigh, and Jack sobs in pain, in overwhelmed arousal, in sheer mindless terror, as the blood wells up, drips down, and those merciless jaws close once more over his cock.

More than almost anything, Jack wants to close his eyes.

But more than that, he wants to give the Doctor everything. So he watches, fingers clenched bloodless in the bedclothes, words lost to the abyss, as his mad, wild Time Lord stills, and breathes, head bowed to rest against the trembling skin of his belly. No teeth touch him. That deep growl starts up again in the Doctor’s chest, resonates through Jack, shakes him down to his synapses, to the space between each of his moments, marching ceaseless toward infinity; and what it writes in him is _mine_ , and _beloved_.

The Doctor draws back, all smooth lips and caressing tongue; Jack moans, bereft, as the fingers slip from inside him as well. "Come here," the Doctor whispers, tugging at him. Jack does, hands rooting greedily under his lover’s nightshirt to touch as much as he can before he is ordered away again. Ignoring his attempt to remove his shirt, the Doctor kisses him deeply, laying claim to every bit of his mouth he can reach, leaving behind the taste of Jack's skin and semen and blood. "Do you understand?" Jack shakes his head _no_ , but maybe he does, maybe he always has. Pushing him flat, the Doctor smiles down at him, the smile of a man who has nothing left to lose. “You will. Knees up, Captain.”

As Jack pulls his knees up, the Doctor pulls his nightshirt off and leans down to mark Jack’s right thigh as well; not with blood this time but still hard enough to punctuate his gasping breaths with low sounds of pain. 

"Give me all of it, Jack, all of you," he murmurs; licks and bites again, and Jack moans and arches toward him, open and vulnerable. "Every noise, every word, every little twitch and flinch and shudder, I want to see it." Too far gone for moderation, Jack simply reaches for everything he has, everything he is, breath and body and blood, mind and heart and soul, and lays it wide open to the Doctor’s touch. With a ragged cry the Doctor falls forward onto him, into him, joining them together rough and sudden, and Jack welcomes him in without hiding the bloom of pain as his weight sets alight all the bites and bruises decorating Jack’s body. For just a moment his mind brushes against Jack's again and a hint of something vast and overwhelming bleeds through, wild as the katabatic winds that occasionally scour the valley, the love song of a star in a frequency Jack can’t quite comprehend.

Jack is not swept away; instead he burns, deep rooted, that flame inside him made open to the air, and the Doctor lays his forehead down on Jack's shoulder and gasps in a silence that seems shocking. His hands are locked on Jack's biceps, holding him down, keeping him grounded, and the simple friction as he thrusts slowly may be the most wonderful thing Jack has ever felt.

“Time is a fire,” the Doctor muses, pausing each time Jack moans, “that consumes me, and you are the fire, Jack -” The _fire_ \- he has to put away the fire -! “Leave it,” the Doctor gasps. “All of you -” He moans, and Jack can’t tell whether it is pain or pleasure. But the Doctor starts biting him again and soon enough Jack is lost in pain and pleasure both; all he knows is the relentless rhythm pushing him closer and closer to the edge.

"Tell me," the Doctor begs, voice raw.

Tell him what? It hardly matters. "Yours," Jack moans, wishing this were his forever. "Need you, want you, love you."

The Doctor twists like a flame, like a leaf in the wind, and he groans with his lip caught between his teeth, fingers digging into Jack's arms. Tightening legs around his waist to hold him steady, Jack watches all the while, eyes open, greedily storing away whatever _this_ is that he'll always have - whatever it is, he wants it all - every ounce of pain, every drop of blood, every thrust of his lover's cock that shudders through him in a riptide of sensation, threatening to tumble him under.

Letting his head fall, the Doctor presses his cheek to Jack’s chest. “Please, Jack, one more time, come for me one more time.”

“I can’t,” Jack gasps, but he pulls his knees up higher, angling himself until every thrust is unbearably sharp, neither pain nor pleasure but only overwhelming sensation. The Doctor is unrelenting and Jack arches off the bed, back straining tight as a bowstring as one last orgasm is ripped from him, bright as unfiltered starlight and as devastating, emptying him out completely.

The Doctor’s motion falters, finally, hips slam against Jack’s arse a final time and he falls still. “You burn so bright,” he says weakly, breaths harsh in a cadence Jack suddenly recognises as no sort of relief, but great pain. Terrified at what they may have done, Jack frantically folds the fire away, reconstructs all the walls that usually keep it at bay.

“Shields,” he coaxes, voice roughened by exertion, “put your shields back up, Doctor, please.” _Please be alright._

Whatever beautiful madness had taken the Doctor seeps slowly away, leaving them tangled together, holding on with what strength they each can muster. “Shh, shh,” the Doctor whispers, smoothing a hand somewhat haphazardly over Jack’s forehead, temple, down across his ear. “It’s alright, Jack, it’s alright.” He doesn’t say _I’m sorry_ , and Jack is relieved to skip that argument for once, decides he is willing to skip the one about reckless endangerment as well; he’s not sure which of them to yell at, in any case. He closes his eyes at last, tightens his arms. The Doctor nods against him but it’s more of a caress, the way he rubs his cheek slowly over Jack’s chest, turns his face into him, as if he were claiming him by scent like a great cat. Letting his head fall to the side, Jack relaxes under his lover, content to be claimed in any way that strikes the Doctor’s fancy.

Eventually the Doctor falls still, breaths deepening, pressed up against Jack’s warmth as usual. Silence heavy between them, Jack lies still as well and lets the lamp burn low as he wonders at the day. A bit odd all around, really. It has been a while since he managed to entertain the entire town at once, but he certainly seems to have managed it today; and just by wearing a new hat. Life has never been so easy.

 _Time._ How long _would_ it take for a hat to practically disintegrate…?

Jack’s vague curiosity is gradually replaced by a determined anxiety, creeping up from the edges. Since when does the Doctor initiate sex in the middle of a conversation? More secrets, Jack thinks suddenly, more words they aren’t saying to each other; and he has been _distracted_ , thoroughly and deliberately.

“Doctor,” Jack whispers, wondering if he has gone to sleep.

“Captain,” he answers immediately; and then Jack is truly afraid.

He takes a breath, and another, blood pounding in his ears, and the Doctor waits silently, as he has been. Waiting there for Jack to realise that it is time to stop hiding. “How long,” Jack says carefully, and swallows. “How long since I said I’d leave?”

In the darkness, the Doctor raises a hand to his face, brushes his hair back tenderly. “Seventy six years.”

Not _neither of them_ , then; only Jack. Only Jack has allowed himself to fall into comfortable routine, hazy intentions, half-sincere promises of _soon_. Only Jack. The Doctor has given him every day of it, every day a gift of his own choice to keep silent, to agree _yes, soon, but not today_. A lifetime lived on an indrawn breath.

“You knew -” Jack begins, and the Doctor’s hand stills. Raising his own hand, he traps the Doctor’s hand against his cheek. “Every day, and you let me stay. You gave me…” He can’t go on, but the Doctor laughs bitterly.

“Don’t assign me virtues I’ve never had, Jack. I kept you. I’m a selfish old man, and I kept you, and once I started I couldn’t stop. Too broken to accept what you were offering, too much a coward to give you any promises, so I lied and I cheated and I _kept you anyway_. I can’t bear to let you go.”

“Then I won’t,” Jack says, unable to take in the rest of it immediately. 

“You will,” the Doctor says sadly. “You must.”

-+-+-+-

 


	50. There at the end

The next day, Jack begins to set things in order. The sheer volume of arrangements this entails is staggering; he has always thought of the Doctor as the mainstay of life here but Jack has become, in many ways, the more public face of the benevolent overlords of the tower. No one else alive can remember a time before he came. No one else alive had _grandparents_ who could remember that time. And odds are, the way the Doctor goes on, in the end no one will remember Jack except as a figure of myth, a fairy tale. The Doctor's long-departed Captain, as lost to memory as the _Barnable_ the Doctor still occasionally asks for. Jack finds himself unexpectedly content with this fate. He came for the Doctor; he stayed for the Doctor. And in the end, only the Doctor will remember him. But who will remember the Doctor, there at the end?

Setting aside his list, which at some point will surely stop growing longer faster than he can cross things off, Jack fetches his coat and hat and climbs the stairs to the top of the tower. “Tasha Lem, come and speak to me,” he calls, and then settles himself to wait.

After nearly an hour, wherein Jack watches the bright sparks of ships hurtle through the darkness, her avatar unfurls in the sky. “Jack Harkness,” she says, after considering him for a long moment. “We are pleased to see you have rediscovered hats.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Oh, hah, hah. Yes, joke’s on me, I’ve been wearing a bird’s nest. Come on then, the whole town's had a go at me. Funny how no one said anything about it when I was wearing the old one.”

Tasha smiles at him with genuine affection, but shakes her head. “Not funny at all. Are you leaving at last?”

Breath leaving him in a pained grunt, Jack looks down, closes his eyes. _Everyone_ but him, then; everyone had seen how fragile the equilibrium the Doctor was maintaining was, how quickly it would shatter at an unwary breath. “I hadn't meant to be,” he admits lowly, rubbing his face. “But it seems I am. The Doctor says I have to.”

“After all this time,” she says; Jack's breath catches at the sympathy in her voice. He hadn't expected that. “No one knows all the Doctor's secrets, Jack Harkness. No one knows all the events he has guided, is still guiding. But you may come closest.”

“I'm the one he keeps all the secrets _from_ ,” Jack says bitterly.

Tasha raises a brow, face showing polite disbelief. “Don't tell me you aren't keeping secrets as well. I don't believe any force in the universe could pry you from his side, otherwise.”

Jack swallows, then meets her eyes resolutely. She knows him too well after so long; if he truly believed the Doctor would meet his final death here, nothing could make him leave the Doctor to face it alone. “Possibilities. Not certainties.”

“Then we will deal in possibilities. Hope, Jack Harkness, is a very powerful thing. Do not give it up unnecessarily. And We will not give up the Doctor. We will take up your standard, Captain.”

Jack stands, and takes off his hat, and bows to her very formally and very sincerely. His throat works for a moment, too tight to make words. “If the Church, or the Mother Superious, or you yourself, Tasha Lem, have any need of me in the future, do not hesitate to request it,” he says, and bows again as she inclines her head to him.

“May God and the universe cherish you in all your journeys,” Tasha says; and then she is gone.

-+-+-

As Jack works his way through centuries of accumulation, it happens entirely more often than seems reasonable that the Doctor tells him to leave off, he'll find someone to give it to later. More often than not Jack ignores him, not wanting to leave a mess. The day he realises that when the Doctor says he'll do it later, what he means is _he wants to keep it_ , he nearly loses his breakfast to the anxious knots his stomach devolves into. Jack spends the rest of the morning quietly retrieving what he can of what he can remember, trading for things the Doctor does not care so much for or, occasionally, outright begging. No one he asks has the heart to refuse him.

When the Doctor returns home to find Jack’s spare boots set back in the corner by the door where they belong, he says nothing; but he comes and tucks himself under Jack’s arm where he sits sorting things on the sofa and says nothing there as well, so that’s alright.

Jack sits for a while in Barnable’s room, one last time. More than two hundred years after his death, Jack’s memories have worn smooth and comfortable but he knows the Doctor still remembers their lost companion sharply when he cares to, as he does all those he has loved. Over the years Jack has kept the room clean and neat, occasionally oiling and warping the loom and reminding himself how to weave as the fancy takes him. He will bring the bed back downstairs to replace the big bed soon, but after that he suspects the room will remain undisturbed all the rest of the Doctor’s years here. Although he stands staring at Barnable's desk for quite some time, in the end he takes nothing but memories with him. He makes sure the vents are still firmly blocked, to keep the soot out, and gets back to work.

-+-+-

They give the bed away; the Doctor goes to a great deal of trouble to sound annoyed at all the trouble a too-large bed is, but faced with the reality of it he flees the tower halfway through disassembly and doesn’t return for hours, unable to watch it go and be replaced. It feels like such a final loss, the age-darkened wood varnished by the oil of their hands, the groove worn in where his cane hangs, the polished smoothness of all the places Jack likes best to hold on to. That night he ignores bedtime entirely, sits stubbornly at his worktable until Jack kneels beside him and reaches up to quiet anxiously chattering lips with a finger.

“Come to bed.”

He doesn't say _for the last time_ , but nonetheless it stands there between them in stark relief. Eyes stubbornly on the toys he has made no real improvements to in hours, the Doctor says, “I don’t want to.”

Tucking his head beneath the Doctor's elbow, Jack leans against him. “That’s the thing about life,” he says, solace in his presence but not his words. “It doesn't wait.” The Doctor doesn’t answer - can’t think of anything false enough to be comfortable but true enough he dares try to say it - but he wishes it _would_ , and hates himself a little for wishing it. “I want you to come to bed,” Jack says; so he does.

Bed size makes no difference to him, of course; he has never had any desire to be further from his bright sun than necessary. It has always been Jack who sprawls. It’s just this horrible sense of dragging inevitability, step by step along a path that does not allow retreat. He could, he has, faced a firing squad with more equanimity. But tucked in safe and warm, held tight in Jack's arms, he can almost forget his coming desolation.

Almost. "Take the bedspread," he says.

"Hm?"

The Doctor lifts his face from his lover’s chest and tries again. "Take the bedspread."

"No," Jack says gently. "It's yours. Wear it out. Or don't. But I don't… take much with me, you know that. With an infinite life, no matter how little one keeps… if it's anything, it's infinite. And who has room for infinite things?"

It seems too resigned a philosophy for his vibrant Captain; he may be treading an infinite path, but so is the universe with him, every moment unique. "It's always countable to where you are, Jack."

Hand rubbing slow circles on the Doctor's back, Jack chuckles. "Says the universe's biggest packrat. But I take your point." He nuzzles the Doctor's hair, kisses his forehead; the heat of him washes over like honey, slow and sweet and shining gold. Closing his eyes, the Doctor tilts his head back against Jack's arm and breathes in the scent of him as warm lips make a slow exploration of his face, wandering without aim. His hands wander on Jack likewise, trying to memorise, trying to store away every touch, every sensation, every moment for the dark, lonely years ahead. "Still," Jack whispers, after a while, "no."

"Because you'll forget," the Doctor guesses. Surely he has tried, in the past; tried to hang on to memories like that and found, eventually, that all he had was something he couldn't remember acquiring. It isn't _things_ he runs out of room for.

Jack nods. "Because I'll forget."

 _Don’t forget me_ , the Doctor wants to say. He wants to say it very, very badly, but it will only hurt Jack and there is nothing at all left for the Doctor to do but try not to hurt his Captain more. He doesn’t say it. Something of the feeling comes through anyway, close as they are.

“No regrets,” Jack whispers against his jaw. “No apologies. You’re alive. Today, and tomorrow, and all the days you have. Don’t forget it.”

“I’ll try,” the Doctor promises; and if it’s the best he can do, maybe it will be enough.

Jack wakes him in the morning with the warm press of hands on bare skin, nose followed by tongue followed, sometimes, by gentle teeth mapping every contour of his body. _For the last time_ , the Doctor’s mind supplies, until the fever heat of Jack’s mouth drives meaning from his sleep-soft thoughts. As he drifts in buoyant lassitude after, Jack draped over him keeping him anchored safe and sure, the Doctor tries to think of nothing at all, but it becomes increasingly difficult.

“You need to keep on Macky about those new refinery processes he was working on,” Jack says suddenly. He shifts a bit, raises his head to look down at the Doctor, hand drifting absently across his shoulder and down his arm, leaving a trail of fire. “And get the staircase rebuilt. And don’t let them slide back into provincialism. This all works a lot better when there’s movement between the towns, none of that isolated little backwoods business.” He means, the Doctor thinks, to give him a direction, a goal to help him along in the first shock of loneliness; but instead there is something terrible about it, to think of this world shaped around the towering presence of the Captain now to be left with only himself to sustain it. 

“You’re fussing again,” the Doctor says, trying to sound prideful and independent and failing rather badly.

Jack laughs softly at him. “If ever there were a time,” and while the Doctor doesn’t exactly _agree_ , he can see his point. “Put the screen on the fire,” Jack whispers, and bends to kiss him before he can complain that that is entirely too much fussing.

Jack cooks him breakfast, for the last time; they sit together, and eat together, and talk together of nothing in particular, for the last time. _Every moment_ for the last time, until the Doctor realises how ridiculously maudlin he is being and laughs.

Looking relieved, Jack smiles at him. “What?”

“I’m an idiot, that’s what. Whole point of living, isn’t it, that time goes on? How many things have we done _for the last time_ without even noticing? Years ago. Centuries, even. Every moment is the last one of its kind. Every moment is new.” Jack nods, but his eyes have gone deep and ancient and the stillness of him waxes resplendent until the Doctor can see nothing else. “Jack,” he says, voice catching. “ _My_ Jack. My Captain.”

He nods again, and brings the Doctor’s hand to his lips like burning coals, and kisses it. “Always.”

-+-+-

All the goodbyes said, all the arrangements made, all his possessions disbursed, Jack has nothing at all left to do but dote on the Doctor for the morning. Despite the tears among the townspeople there has been a sense of expectation satisfied by Jack’s leaving, a prophecy finding realisation. The oldest of them were children when he announced so publicly his intention to leave.

Silent, they sit together on the roof to watch the bare minutes of daylight, their daily glimpse of what they fight for here and reminder of other times and places, worlds to which Jack will shortly be returning. When darkness has returned to the sky, the Doctor sighs and leans against Jack, who pulls him closer; if the Doctor's besetting sin is his inability to stop, Jack's must be his inability to let go. Life seems to test them both with an enthusiasm that borders on the obscene.

“It will be so dark here, when you're gone,” the Doctor says, wistfully resigned.

Glancing askance at him, Jack points out, “It's already pretty damn dark.”

The Doctor shakes his head. “It's never dark when you're about, Jack. Always that glimmer on the horizon, that glare in the corner of my eye. You're the sun in my sky.”

Drawing a painful breath, Jack kisses his head gently. “I hadn't realised you meant it literally.”

“In every way,” the Doctor whispers.

“But you still want me to go.”

He laughs, a humorless _hah_ , and slips from Jack's embrace, rises to stand looking out over the town. “Now _that's_ a willful misrepresentation if ever I've heard one. It's all I can do sometimes…” He shakes his head again, more forcefully. “Go. Go now.”

Jack stands, steps up to the edge beside him, leans his hip against the wall. “Look at me, Doctor, please.” He waits, two breaths, three, until the Doctor reluctantly turns his head just enough to see him. “I love you. I'll always love you. Don't say you're sorry.” Hand to his cheek, Jack gently coaxes the Doctor to turn a little further and leans forward to lay their foreheads together. “You know where to find me. I'll be waiting.”

Unwilling to admit such a hope, the Doctor makes an unhappy noise and doesn’t answer. Jack tilts his face up and kisses him, bright and ephemeral, then backs away, letting the image burn itself into the deepest corners of his being, this last sight of the Doctor standing guard against the hungry darkness as he has stood for so long. As Jack leaves the tower to retrieve his vortex manipulator at last from the TARDIS where it has laid safe all these years, the bell rings out, calling farewell to him, marking the end of an age. He puts his head down and doesn't look back.

-+-+-

Jack doesn't go to Bellacosa right away; there's no hurry. He will be there, and the Doctor will come to him, and Jack will finally, too late, catch up to him: come to understand the silences, the words he misinterpreted, the times the Doctor would catch himself in the middle of a sentence looking, for a moment, as if he had lost his best friend. Because he was the wrong Jack.

And by the time he is the right one, there may be no going back.

There's no hurry.

So he wanders, free again, to every warm and sunny place he can think of; when he is sick of it, he tries cold and sunny. In places dark and warm he misses the Doctor far too much, longs desperately for the reassurance of having him within arm's reach, safe and protected. But sunlight, whatever the colour, scatters the memories from his mind's eye. The pain of going on eats him alive some days and he drowns it in drink, in adrenaline, in adoration, in rage, in sex, in life. Not in death, not this time. Easy enough to let years slip through his fingers, living as whimsy dictates, but eventually it fades to a dull ache and he feels strong enough to be, once again, what the Doctor needs. There was happiness promised as well, a happily-for-now that Jack half wants to live, half wants to save indefinitely as a promise for later. But shining things lose their lustre if saved for too long, memories lose their impact, life loses its immediacy, and he won't consign the Doctor to being a resurrected memory. He might as well have stayed on Trenzalore.

And so, eventually, Jack makes his way to Bellacosa. If it had mattered when, the Doctor would have mentioned. He picks the 63rd century; it is a well-established settlement at that point, diverse and peaceful, not grown so large as to have no empty space. The mountains call him, the bright wide sky above his head, opening at his feet with a bit of a climb, and he finds himself an empty space to make his own. And Jack waits.

One sunny spring day, Jack sits, feet up, windows open to the breeze, reading another history of his adopted home. He has been here for years, and is prepared to be here for years more, with or without the Doctor; there’s no telling when he will show up. The house is built to Jack’s taste, uncomplicated and airy, wood and simple lines, but there is room for the Doctor. Plenty of shelves, although Jack doesn’t keep a great deal of things aside from the steadily growing collection of books. A bigger bed than he needs, alone. Fancy biscuits Jack doesn’t like, and the Doctor probably won’t either, but it’s not as if he can get jammy dodgers in the 63rd century.

Jack is reading about the Land Grant Act of 6021 and the violent unrest after offworld interests moved in when he begins to hear a familiar song, a feeling of coming home. Shortly afterward the grinding wheeze of the TARDIS’s engines drifts through the open windows, and it is all he can do not to leap up and run to her as he is. Fierce joy welling up in his chest, suffusing him until he thinks he might shine bright with it as the Doctor has always said, Jack steps into his shoes, pulls his coat on with steady hands. He opens the door, steps out, and there she is as if she always had been, a bright blue box on the open hillside, singing of home, and comfort, and belonging. 

And then there is the Doctor, so young, so _young_ , Jack had forgotten how young he had been. So lost and broken, such a weight of sorrow bowing his shoulders, hiding in that green coat he always wore to do battle with the world. Smiling in welcome, tamping down the fierceness of his joy at seeing his lonely wanderer again so as not to scare him off, Jack shades his eyes with a raised arm and waits as the Doctor makes his way down the slope.

“Took you long enough,” he calls, when the wind won’t steal away his words. “Doctor.”

-+-+-+-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And so, at last, this is the Jack who greets the Doctor in[Chapter 4 of A Long Shadow Cast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458029/chapters/38788832), and ends up stealing his own lover away from himself, only to lose him, in turn, to Trenzalore and his own past. Just the epilogue to go, now._


End file.
